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ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER 

From  a  Painting  by  F.  von  'Lenpach. 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER 


TRANSLATED  BY 


BAILEY  SAUNDERS  and 
ERNEST  BELFORT  BAX 


WITH  A  SPECIAL  INTRODUCTION  BY 


JAMES  GIBSON  HUME,  M.A.,Ph.D 

Professor  of  Philosophy,  University  of  Toronto. 


P1.WALTER  DUNNE, PUBLISHER 
WASHINGTON  &  LONDON 


Copyright,  1901, 


BY 

M.  WALTER  DUNNE, 

PUBLISHER 


i 3 6500 


SPECIAL  INTRODUCTION 


The  Essays  of  Schopenhauer  comprised  in  this  volume 
are  well  designated  by  the  title  which  specially  per¬ 
tains  to  the  first  Essay.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the 
earlier  essays  are  predominantly  theoretical  or  meta¬ 
physical,  the  later  practical  or  ethical.  Hence  we 
have  in  these  Essays  Schopenhauer’s  views  upon  a  num¬ 
ber  of  important  problems  in  Metaphysics  and  Ethics, 
valuable,  as  an  introduction  to  his  more  abstract  expo¬ 
sitions,  to  the  specialist  in  philosophy,  and  yet  presented 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  appeal  to  the  general  reader  and 
student  of  literature. 

Among  philosophical  writers  Schopenhauer  enjoys  the 
advantage  of  standing  alone.  He  cannot  be  classified. 
He  thus  escapes  being  lost  in  the  crowd.  It  is  indeed 
true  that  a  great  deal  of  what  he  writes  is  taken  from  his 
predecessors.  It  is,  however,  borrowed,  not  stolen.  It 
is  in  each  case  acknowledged  and  accredited  to  the 
original  authors,  and  while  it  is  adopted  by  Schopenhauer 
it  is  so  assimilated  and  transmuted  as  to  become  his  own, 
bearing  his  image  and  superscription. 

He  also  possesses  the  advantage  of  a  distinctive  and 
polished  literary  style.  He  has  a  highly  developed 
artistic  sense  and  in  accordance  with  this  selects  and 
arranges  his  material  in  a  form  of  expression  pleasing 
to  his  readers.  Although  a  recluse  and  given  to  the 
habit  of  talking  to  himself,  when  he  writes  he  talks  to 
his  reader  frankly  and  entertainingly.  While  he  does 
not  even  pretend  to  practice  what  he  preaches  in  regard 
to  ethical  matters,  it  will  be  found  that  his  views  on 
the  writing  of  literature  are  practiced  by  himself.  For 
instance,  note  the  advice  to  writers  upon  the  choice  of  a 
title.  How  well  has  he  succeeded  in  this.  Each  of  his 
writings  has  a  title  appropriate,  striking,  suggestive, 
illuminating. 


(v) 


VI 


SCHOPENHAUER 


Another  advantage  that  Schopenhauer  has,  is,  that  while 
posing  as  a  critic,  he  is  also  the  advocate  of  a  positive  be¬ 
lief.  His  criticism  is  not  merely  fault-finding  without  any 
substitute  proposed.  His  confidence  in  his  own  theory, 
whether  justifiable  or  not,  makes  him  earnest  at  all  times, 
and  this  makes  even  his  petty  moods  and  savage  attacks 
attain  a  certain  dignity  that  covers  a  multitude  of  sins. 

An  additional  advantage  that  Schopenhauer  has  is 
in  possessing  a  unique  and  striking  personality.  This 
always  attracts  notice  and  interest  even  if  it  does  not 
evoke  admiration  or  elicit  approval.  On  the  whole  there 
is  more  of  what  we  can  in  a  sense  admire  than  there  is 
of  what  we  can  commend  in  Schopenhauer’s  personality. 
Nevertheless  one  is  fascinated  with  the  peculiarities  of 
this  eccentric  individual.  He  is  a  problem  as  complex 
as  his  philosophy.  Indeed  they  are  the  same  problem, 
for,  as  much  as  any  writer  not  excepting  Fichte,  and 
much  more  than  most  other  writers,  Schopenhauer’s 
philosophy  is  an  expression  of  himself.  His  own  peculiar 
character  is  the  <(  will ®  of  which  his  philosophy  is  the 
<(  presentation,  *  to  use  his  own  phraseology.  From  this 
one  would  naturally  be  led  to  expect  a  consistent  and 
harmonious  system,  but  this  presupposes  a  unitary  char¬ 
acter.  Such,  however,  is  just  the  reverse  of  the  facts  in 
this  case.  Schopenhauer’s  character  is  a  walking  contra¬ 
diction.  No  delineation  of  a  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde 
can  approach  to  the  weird  and  uncanny  way  in  which 
the  two  natures  are  bound  together,  forever  fiercely 
fighting,  not  alternating,  in  Schopenhauer.  He  himself 
is  well  aware  of  this,  and  in  his  own  way  tries  to  account 
for  it  first  by  heredity  and  secondly  by  a  philosophy  of 
the  Universe.  His  philosophy  of  the  Universe  is  just 
himself  (<writ  large,®  just  as  his  remarks  on  women  are 
just  a  detailed  account  of  his  mother,  as  he  views  her. 

Arthur  Schopenhauer  was  born  in  1788,  died  in  i860.*  His 

*For  Schopenhauer’s  (<  Life  and  Writings, w  see  Article  (<  Arthur  Scho¬ 
penhauer  »  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  Vol.  XXI.,  pp.  448-458;  also 
Life  of  Arthur  Schopenhauer, »  by  William  Wallace,  with  Bibliog¬ 
raphy,  byj.  P.  Anderson,  up  to  1890;  published  by  Walter  Scott,  London. 

For  a  criticism  of  Schopenhauer’s  system  see  article  by  R.  Adam¬ 
son  in  (< Mind,^  Vol.  I.,  1876,  pp.  491-509. 


SPECIAL  INTRODUCTION 


Vll 


father,  Heinrich  Schopenhauer,  was  a  wealthy  merchant 
of  Dantzic,  of  strong  political  opinions,  cosmopolitan  in¬ 
terests,  and  independence  of  thought.  His  mother  was 
Johanna  Schopenhauer,  a  graceful  and  refined  lady  of  lit¬ 
erary  instincts  and  ambitions,  who,  after  her  husband’s 
death,  attained  to  some  degree  of  success  as  an  author¬ 
ess.  From  the  standpoint  of  heredity  Schopenhauer  was 
unfortunate  on  the  father’s  side,  as  there  were  in  the 
father  strong  tendencies  to  mental  alienation  that  ap¬ 
peared  in  the  son  in  the  form  of  eccentricities,  ground¬ 
less  fears,  and  suspiciousness.  On  his  mother’s  side  he 
also  suffered  in  environment,  for  according  to  Scho¬ 
penhauer’s  testimony,  her  method  of  dealing  with  him 
was  unsympathetic.  It  must  be  granted  that  he  was  not 
an  easy  individual  to  deal  with.  His  mother’s  butterfly 
vanity  and  her  selfishness,  her  method  of  snubbing, 
mortifying,  and  disparaging  her  son  were  unfortunate  and 
injurious  in  their  influence.  She  did  not  seem  to  have 
the  true  mother  instinct  of  love  which  Schopenhauer 
sadly  needed.  While  Kant  could  recall  the  tender  solici¬ 
tude  and  pious  influence  of  a  godly  and  deeply  affection¬ 
ate  mother  molding  his  whole  life,  Schopenhauer  could 
accuse  his  mother  of  frivolity  and  heartlessness.  Not 
that  she  was  positively  cruel,  but  simply  lacking  in  regard 
for  her  son. 

With  natural  tendencies  that  dragged  him  to  the  earth, 
there  was  conjoined  a  genius  that  turned  his  gaze  upward 
persistently.  This  was  his  love  for  the  beautiful  and  his 
interest  in  reflective  contemplation.  From  the  poet- 
philosopher  Plato  he  appropriated  a  vision  of  the  ideal 
world  in  contrast  with  the  fleeting  shadows  that  mock 
us.  Plato’s  story  of  the  Cave  is  Schopenhauer’s  philosophy 
in  its  main  features.  He  turns  with  eager  interest  to  the 
neo-Platonic  adaptations  of  the  original  Plato.  From  this 
he  is  led  back  to  Oriental  speculation  with  its  Buddhistic 
self-obliteration,  its  annihilation  of  the  Will-to-live,  its  Nir¬ 
vana.  He  studied  Kant  assiduously  and  made  himself 
familiar  with  the  leading  features  of  this  great  modern 
thinker.  When  he  began  to  write  his  own  views  he 
claimed  to  be  the  true  disciple  of  Kant,  but  in  reality  he 
translates,  selects,  rejects,  adapts,  and  modifies  Kant  to 


vm 


SCHOPENHAUER 


suit  his  own  predilections.  He  was  the  first  to  call  at¬ 
tention  to  the  differences  in  the  two  editions  of  Kant’s 
"Critique  of  the  Pure  Reason,®  and  fiercely  attacks  Kant 
for  modifications  introduced  into  the  second  edition. 
Among  English  readers  both  Kant  and  Hegel  have  suf¬ 
fered  to  some  extent  from  the  fact  that  in  many  cases 
they  have  been  first  looked  at  through  the  spectacles  of 
Schopenhauer’s  presentation,  which  is  often  a  misrepresen¬ 
tation.  The  fault  is  partly  with  Kant  and  Hegel.  What 
Schopenhauer  says  about  the  style  or  rather  lack  of  style 
in  much  that  they  wrote  is  —  unfortunately  too  true.  It 
is  not  surprising  that  the  majority  of  those  to  whom 
German  is  a  foreign  language  should  begin  their  acquaint¬ 
ance  with  German  philosophy  through  the  reading  of 
Schopenhauer,  because  of  the  elegance,  simplicity,  and 
charm  of  his  exposition.  But  Schopenhauer  is  not  a  trust¬ 
worthy  expositor  or  critic  of  others.  He  can  speak  for 
himself  and  he  warns  his  readers  against  accepting  any 
exposition  of  an  author,  earnestly  advises  them  to  go  to 
the  originals  and  not  take  their  impressions  from  the 
"cast  of  a  cast,®  blurred  and  indistinct  like  old  type.  A 
knowledge  of  Kant  will  help  much  in  the  comprehension 
and  correction  of  Schopenhauer.  A  knowledge  of  Hegel 
is  almost  as  essential  to  the  philosophical  student  as  an 
antidote  against  Schopenhauer’s  onesidedness.* 

It  would  be  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  trace 
contradictions  in  Schopenhauer.  According  to  his  theory 
the  whole  Universe  is  a  mighty  contradiction  where  the 
false  appearances  continually  strive  to  usurp  the  place 
that  rightfully  belongs  to  the  deeper,  more  abiding  Will. 
What  Schopenhauer  means  by  "Will®  is  a  puzzle  not 
easily  solved.  The  reader  should  be  warned  against 
lightly  identifying  the  term  with  his  own  previous  con¬ 
ceptions.  In  connection  with  this  chief  term  we  may 
find  opposite  poles  of  meaning  from  the  crudest  material¬ 
istic  to  the  most  refined  idealistic.  It  would  be  tedious 
to  enumerate  the  ambiguities  whereby  he  alternately  pleases 
and  displeases  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  theorizers  and 

*  The  following  writers  in  English  have  been  in  various  degrees 
influenced  by  Hegel:  Morris,  Wallace,  Green,  -  John  and  Edward 
Caird,  Watson,  Royce,  Ritchie,  Dewey,  Harris. 


SPECIAL  INTRODUCTION 


IX 


anti-theorizers.  He  declares  that  a  man’s  creed  should  be 
(<  I  must  have  a  metaphysic, w  and  then  elaborately  argues 
that  all  metaphysic  is  foolishness.  He  asserts  that  specula¬ 
tion  is  for  action,  wisdom  for  life,  and  then  sophistically 
argues  that  we  should  not  expect  a  metaphysician  to  be 
a  saint,  and  as  usual  proves  (?)  it  by  a  misleading  analogy 
from  the  sculptor  who  does  not  need  to  be  himself  beauti¬ 
ful  to  make  a  beautiful  statue.  He  does  not  claim  con¬ 
sistency  between  his  theory  and  his  practice.  Although 
he  discovers  the  root  of  all  morality  and  religion  in  a  basal 
sympathy  due  to  the  fact  that  in  the  last  resort  all  be¬ 
ings  are  but  passing  phases  of  the  one  identical  striving; 
the  chief  characteristic  in  Schopenhauer  is  his  misan¬ 
thropic  lack  of  sympathy.  Although  he  outruns  the  mys¬ 
tics,  the  pietists  and  the  pantheists  in  his  demand  not 
only  for  the  renunciation  of  the  joys  of  life  but  also  of  the 
love  of  life,  he  cleverly  refutes  the  foolishness  of  suicide. 

In  spite  of  contradictions  sometimes  amusing,  often 
tragic,  due  to  the  conflict  of  his  own  character,  we  may 
gather  much  of  what  is  true  and  excellent  from  Schopen¬ 
hauer.  His  claim  that  a  man  should  have  a  theory  of 
life  that  is  really  his  own  and  not  one  blindly  adopted 
on  authority  is  a  truth  that  needs  to  be  reasserted  in 
every  age.  Without  this  insight,  no  progress.  Schopen¬ 
hauer  has  been  accused  of  repudiating  history  altogether. 
What  he  despises  and  condemns  is  the  mere  enumeration 
of  incidents  without  discerning  their  deeper  meaning. 
It  may  be  granted  that  he  does  more  to  state  the  prob¬ 
lem  of  life  than  he  does  toward  solving  it.  He  refers  to 
<(  Will  ®  as  his  ultimate  metaphysical  reality,  and  to 
<(  Sympathy  w  as  his  ultimate  ethical  principle.  The  prob¬ 
lem  he  leaves  to  his  successors  is  to  discover  in  what 
sense  Will  w  and  <(  Sympathy >y  must  be  understood,  if 
they  are  to  result  in  self-conservation  and  not  in  self- 
destruction  as  in  Schopenhauer.  Even  Schopenhauer’s 
pessimistic  conclusion  has  a  philosophical  value.  Unlike 
such  writers  as  John  Locke  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  who 
start  with  a  narrow  theory  and  end  with  many  excellent 
truths  that  are  brought  in  not  because  of  their  theory, 
but  in  spite  of  it,  whereby  the  original  jackdaw  gets 
decked  in  borrowed  plumage,  Schopenhauer  with  all  his 


X 


SCHOPENHAUER 


waywardness  is  at  least  in  his  final  conclusion  consistent 
with  his  fundamental  philosophy.  To  those  who  reject 
his  (< materialistic  pantheism,”  the  gloomy  pessimism  in 
which  it  is  seen  to  issue  will  be  regarded  as  a  truer 
insight  than  the  somewhat  shallow  optimism  that  charac¬ 
terizes  other  recent  theosophical  pantheistic  systems.  The 
pessimistic  conclusion  is  more  likely  to  lead  to  a  reconsid¬ 
eration  of  the  original  presuppositions. 

Schopenhauer  explicitly  announces  that  he  is  in  open 
revolt  against  every  so-called  orthodox  position.  His 
work  is  throughout  a  protest.  He  naturally  attracts  to 
him  every  one  who  is  dissatisfied,  and  where  can  we  find 
anyone  who  thinks  seriously  who  does  not  find  something 
needing  emendation  ?  It  will  not  be  surprising  if  the 
majority  of  those  who  would  in  varying  degrees  accept 
Schopenhauer’s  denunciations  of  established  opinions 
should  also  see  equal  force  in  the  objections  that  could 
be  urged  against  his  own  position.  The  result  might  be 
that  instead  of  saying  that  nothing  was  left  over  worthy 
of  being  retained,  the  point  of  view  gained  by  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  inadequacy  in  each  one-sided  position  might  lead 
to  the  stereoscopic  combination  whereby  a  new  result 
would  be  gained  far  in  advance  of  either  Schopenhauer 
or  his  opponents,  for  which  we  should  give  both  of  them 
humble  and  hearty  thanks. 

Schopenhauer,  in  spite  of  all  his  faults,  is  a  mine  of 
suggestion  both  to  the  literary  and  to  the  philosophical 
student.  If  we  understand  the  secret  of  his  waywardness 
and  extend  our  sympathy,  we  shall  reap  much  benefit 
and  not  waste  our  efforts  in  too  harsh  criticism. 


CONTENTS 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 

Chap.  Page 

Introduction .  i 

I.  Division  of  the  Subject .  3 

II.  Personality,  or  What  a  Man  Is . 12 

III.  Property,  or  What  a  Man  Has . 36 

IV.  Position,  or  a  Man’s  Place  in  the  Estimation  of  Others — 

Sect.  1.  Reputation . 44 

Sect.  2.  Pride . 51 

Sect.  3.  Rank . 53 

Sect.  4.  Honor . 54 

Sect.  5.  Fame . 85 

ESSAYS 

Sketch  of  a  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Ideal  and 

Real . 101 

Fragments  of  the  History  of  Philosophy — 

Sect.  1.  On  the  same . 129 

Sect.  2.  Pre-Socratic  Philosophy . 130 

Sect.  3.  Socrates . 139 

Sect.  4.  Plato . 14 1 

Sect.  5.  Aristotle . 145 

Sect.  6.  Stoics . 150 

Sect.  7.  Neoplatonists . 155 

Sect.  8.  The  Gnostics . 159 

Sect.  9.  Scotus  Erigena . 160 

Sect.  10.  Scholasticism . 164 

Sect.  11.  Bacon  of  Verulam . 165 

Sect.  12.  The  Philosophy  of  the  Moderns  .  .  .  167 

Sect.  13.  Further  Observations  on  Kantian  Philosophy  178 

Sect.  14.  Observations  on  Schopenhauer’s  Philosophy  230 

On  Philosophy  and  Its  Method . 237 

Some  Reflections  on  the  Antithesis  of  Thing-in-itself  and 

Phenomenon . 255 

(xi) 


Xll 


SCHOPENHAUER 


Page 

Some  Words  on  Pantheism . 263 

On  Ethics . 266 

On  the  Doctrine  of  the  Indestructibility  of  Our  True 

Nature  by  Death . 304 

On  Suicide . 318 

Contributions  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Affirmation  and 

Negation  of  the  Will-to-live . 323 


INTRODUCTION. 


In  these  pages  I  shall  speak  of  (<  The  Wisdom  of  Life  ® 
in  the  common  meaning  of  the  term,  as  the  art,  namely, 
of  ordering  our  lives  so  as  to  obtain  the  greatest  possible 
amount  of  pleasure  and  success;  an  art  the  theory  of 
which  may  be  called  Eud^emonology,  for  it  teaches  us  how 
to  lead  a  happy  existence.  Such  an  existence  might  per¬ 
haps  be  defined  as  one  which,  looked  at  from  a  purely 
objective  point  of  view,  or  rather,  after  cool  and  mature 
reflection  —  for  the  question  necessarily  involves  subjective 
considerations, —  would  be  decidedly  preferable  to  non¬ 
existence  ;  implying  that  we  should  cling  to  it  for  its  own 
sake,  and  not  merely  from  the  fear  of  death ;  and  further, 
that  we  should  never  like  it  to  come  to  an  end. 

Now  whether  human  life  corresponds,  or  could  possibly 
correspond,  to  this  conception  of  existence,  is  a  question 
to  which,  as  is  well  known,  my  philosophical  system  returns 
a  negative  answer.  On  the  eudsemonistic  hypothesis,  how¬ 
ever,  the  question  must  be  answered  in  the  affirmative; 
and  I  have  shown,  in  the  second  volume  of  my  chief  work 
( ch.  49 ) ,  that  this  hypothesis  is  based  upon  a  fundamental 
mistake.  Accordingly,  in  elaborating  the  scheme  of  a 
happy  existence,  I  have  had  to  make  a  complete  surrender 
of  the  higher  metaphysical  and  ethical  standpoint  to  which 
my  own  theories  lead;  and  everything  I  shall  say  here 
will  to  some  extent  rest  upon  a  compromise;  in  so  far, 
that  is,  as  I  take  the  common  standpoint  of  every  day, 
and  embrace  the  error  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  it.  My 
remarks,  therefore,  will  possess  only  a  qualified  value,  for 
the  very  word  eud^emonology  is  a  euphemism.  Further, 
I  make  no  claims  to  completeness;  partly  because  the  sub¬ 
ject  is  inexhaustible,  and  partly  because  I  should  otherwise 
have  to  say  over  again  what  has  been  already  said  by 
others. 


i 


(D 


2 


INTRODUCTION 


The  only  book  composed,  as  far  as  I  remember,  with  a 
like  purpose  to  that  which  animates  this  collection  of 
aphorisms,  is  Cardan’s  De  utilitate  ex  adversis  capienda, 
which  is  well  worth  reading,  and  may  be  used  to  supple¬ 
ment  the  present  work.  Aristotle,  it  is  true,  has  a  few 
words  on  eudaemonology  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  first 
book  of  his  <(  Rhetoric ;  ®  but  what  he  says  does  not  come 
to  very  much.  As  compilation  is  not  my  business,  I  have 
made  no  use  of  these  predecessors;  more  especially  be¬ 
cause  in  the  process  of  compiling  individuality  of  view  is 
lost,  and  individuality  of  view  is  the  kernel  of  works  of 
this  kind.  In  general,  indeed,  the  wise  in  all  ages  have 
always  said  the  same  thing,  and  the  fools,  who  at  all  times 
form  the  immense  majority,  have  in  their  way,  too,  acted 
alike,  and  done  just  the  opposite;  and  so  it  will  continue. 
For,  as  Voltaire  says,  we  shall  leave  this  world  as 

FOOLISH  AND  AS  WICKED  AS  WE  FOUND  IT  ON  OUR  ARRIVAL. 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Division  of  the  Subject. 

Aristotle  divides  the  blessings  of  life  into  three  classes 
—  those  which  come  to  us  from  without,  those  of  the 
soul,  and  those  of  the  body.  Keeping  nothing  of  this 
division  but  the  number,  I  observe  that  the  fundamen¬ 
tal  differences  in  human  lot  may  be  reduced  to  three 
distinct  classes  : 

(1)  What  a  man  is  :  that  is  to  say,  personality,  in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  word;  under  which  are  included 
health,  strength,  beauty,  temperament,  moral  character, 
intelligence  and  education. 

(2)  What  a  man  has  :  that  is,  property  and  possessions 
of  every  kind. 

(3)  How  a  man  stands  in  the  estimation  of  others  : 
by  which  is  to  be  understood,  as  everybody  knows,  what 
a  man  is  in  the  eyes  of  his  fellow-men,  or,  more  strictly, 
the  light  in  which  they  regard  him.  This  is  shown  by 
their  opinion  of  him;  and  their  opinion  is  in  its  turn 
manifested  by  the  honor  in  which  he  is  held,  and  by  his 
rank  and  reputation. 

The  differences  which  come  under  the  first  head  are 
those  which  Nature  herself  has  set  between  man  and 
man ;  and  from  this  fact  alone  we  may  at  once  infer  that 
they  influence  the  happiness  or  unhappiness  of  mankind 
in  a  much  more  vital  and  radical  way  than  those  contained 
under  the  two  following  heads,  which  are  merely  the 
effect  of  human  arrangements.  Compared  with  genuine 
personal  advantages,  such  as  a  great  mind  or  a  great 
heart,  all  the  privileges  of  rank  or  birth,  even  of  royal 
birth,  are  but  as  kings  on  the  stage  to  kings  in  real  life. 
The  same  thing  was  said  long  ago  by  Metrodorus,  the 

(3) 


4 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


earliest  disciple  of  Epicurus,  who  wrote  as  the  title  of 
one  of  his  chapters,  The  happiness  we  receive  from 

OURSELVES  IS  GREATER  THAN  THAT  WHICH  WE  OBTAIN  FROM 

our  surroundings.  And  it  is  an  obvious  fact,  which 
cannot  be  called  in  question,  that  the  principal  element 
in  a  man’s  well-being-, —  indeed,  in  the  whole  tenor  of  his 
existence, —  is  what  he  is  made  of,  his  inner  constitution. 
For  this  is  the  immediate  source  of  that  inward  satis¬ 
faction  or  dissatisfaction  resulting  from  the  sum  total  of 
his  sensations,  desires  and  thoughts;  while  his  surround¬ 
ings  on  the  other  hand,  exert  only  a  mediate  or  indirect 
influence  upon  him.  This  is  why  the  same  external 
events  or  circumstances  affect  no  two  people  alike;  even 
with  perfectly  similar  surroundings  every  one  lives  in  a 
world  of  his  own.  For  a  man  has  immediate  appre¬ 
hension  only  of  his  own  ideas,  feelings  and  volitions;  the 
outer  world  can  influence  him  only  in  so  far  as  it  brings 
these  to  life.  The  world  in  which  a  man  lives  shapes 
itself  chiefly  by  the  way  in  which  he  looks  at  it,  and  so 
it  proves  different  to  different  men;  to  one  it  is  barren, 
dull,  and  superficial;  to  another  rich,  interesting,  and  full 
of  meaning.  On  hearing  of  the  interesting  events  which 
have  happened  in  the  course  of  a  man’s  experience, 
many  people  will  wish  that  similar  things  had  happened 
in  their  lives  too,  completely  forgetting  that  they  should 
be  envious  rather  of  the  mental  aptitude  which  lent  those 
events  the  significance  they  possess  when  he  describes 
them.  To  a  man  of  genius  they  were  interesting  adven¬ 
tures  ;  but  to  the  dull  perceptions  of  an  ordinary  individual 
they  would  have  been  stale,  everyday  occurrences.  This 
is  in  the  highest  degree  the  case  with  many  of  Goethe’s 
and  Byron’s  poems,  which  are  obviously  founded  upon 
actual  facts;  where  it  is  open  to  a  foolish  reader  to  envy 
the  poet  because  so  many  delightful  things  happened  to 
him,  instead  of  envying  that  mighty  power  of  phantasy 
which  was  capable  of  turning  a  fairly  common  experience 
into  something  so  great  and  beautiful. 

In  the  same  way,  a  person  of  melancholy  temperament 
will  make  a  scene  in  a  tragedy  out  of  what  appears  to 
the  sanguine  man  only  in  the  light  of  an  interesting  con¬ 
flict,  and  to  a  phlegmatic  soul  as  something  without  any 


DIVISION  OF  THE  SUBJECT 


5 


meaning.  This  all  rests  upon  the  fact  that  every  event, 
in  order  to  be  realized  and  appreciated,  requires  the  co¬ 
operation  of  two  factors,  namely,  a  subject  and  an  object; 
although  these  are  as  closely  and  necessarily  connected  as 
oxygen  and  hydrogen  in  water.  When  therefore  the 
objective  or  external  factor  in  an  experience  is  actually 
the  same,  but  the  subjective  or  personal  appreciation  of 
it  varies,  the  event  is  just  as  much  a  different  one  in  the 
eyes  of  different  persons  as  if  the  objective  factors  had 
not  been  alike;  for  to  a  blunt  intelligence  the  fairest  and 
best  object  in  the  world  presents  only  a  poor  reality  and 
is  therefore  only  poorly  appreciated, — like  a  fine  landscape 
in  dull  weather,  or  in  the  reflection  of  a  bad  camera  obscura. 
In  plain  language,  every  man  is  pent  up  within  the  limits 
of  his  own  consciousness,  and  cannot  directly  get  beyond 
.those  limits  any  more  than  he  can  get  beyond  his  own 
skin ;  so  external  aid  is  not  of  much  use  to  him.  On  the 
stage,  one  man  is  a  prince,  another  a  minister,  a  third  a 
servant  or  a  soldier  or  a  general,  and  so  on,  mere  external 
differences;  the  inner  reality,  the  kernel  of  all  these  ap¬ 
pearances  is  the  same  —  a  poor  player,  with  all  the  anxie¬ 
ties  of  his  lot.  In  life  it  is  just  the  same.  Differences  of 
rank  and  wealth  give  every  man  his  part  to  play,  but 
this  by  no  means  implies  a  difference  of  inward  happiness 
and  pleasure;  here,  too,  there  is  the  same  being  in  all  — 
a  poor  mortal,  with  his  hardships  and  troubles.  Though 
these  may,  indeed,  in  every  case  proceed  from  dissimilar 
causes,  they  are  in  their  essential  nature  much  the  same 
in  all  their  forms,  with  degrees  of  intensity  which  vary, 
no  doubt,  but  in  nowise  correspond  to  the  part  a  man 
has  to  play,  or  the  presence  or  absence  of  position  and 
wealth.  Since  everything  which  exists  or  happens  for  a 
man  exists  only  in  his  consciousness  and  happens  for  it 
alone,  the  most  essential  thing  for  a  man  is  the  constitu¬ 
tion  of  this  consciousness,  which  is  in  most  cases  far  more 
important  than  the  circumstances  which  go  to  form  its 
contents.  All  the  pride  and  pleasure  of  the  world,  mir¬ 
rored  in  the  dull  consciousness  of  a  fool,  is  poor  indeed 
compared  with  the  imagination  of  Cervantes  writing  his 
w  Don  Quixote  *  in  a  miserable  prison.  The  objective 
half  of  life  and  reality  is  in  the  hand  of  fate,  and  accord¬ 
ingly  takes  various  forms  in  different  cases:  the  subjec- 


6 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


tive  half  is  ourself,  and  in  essentials  it  always  remains 
the  same. 

Hence  the  life  of  every  man  is  stamped  with  the  same 
character  throughout,  however  much  his  external  circum¬ 
stances  may  alter;  it  is  like  a  series  of  variations  on  a 
single  theme.  No  one  can  get  beyond  his  own  individual¬ 
ity.  An  animal,  under  whatever  circumstances  it  is  placed, 
remains  within  the  narrow  limits  to  which  nature  has 
irrevocably  consigned  it;  so  that  our  endeavors  to  make 
a  pet  happy  must  always  keep  within  the  compass  of  its 
nature,  and  be  restricted  to  what  it  can  feel.  So  it  is 
with  man;  the  measure  of  the  happiness  he  can  attain  is 
determined  beforehand  by  his  individuality.  More  espe¬ 
cially  is  this  the  case  with  the  mental  powers,  which  fix 
once  for  all  his  capacity  for  the  higher  kinds  of  pleasure. 
If  these  powers  are  small,  no  efforts  from  without,  noth¬ 
ing  that  his  fellow-men  or  that  fortune  can  do  for  him, 
will  suffice  to  raise  him  above  the  ordinary  degree  of  hu¬ 
man  happiness  and  pleasure,  half  animal  though  it  be. 
His  only  resources  are  his  sensual  appetite,  a  cosy  and 
cheerful  family  life  at  the  most,  low  company  and  vulgar 
pastime;  even  education,  on  the  whole,  can  avail  little,  if 
anything,  for  the  enlargement  of  his  horizon.  For  the 
highest,  most  varied  and  lasting  pleasures  are  those  of 
the  mind,  however  much  our  youth  may  deceive  us  on 
this  point;  and  the  pleasures  of  the  mind  turn  chiefly  on 
the  powers  of  the  mind.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  our  happi¬ 
ness  depends  in  a  great  degree  upon  what  we  are,  upon 
our  individuality,  while  lot  or  destiny  is  generally  taken 
to  mean  only  what  we  have,  or  our  reputation.  Our 
lot,  in  this  sense,  may  improve;  but  we  do  not  ask  much 
of  it  if  we  are  inwardly  rich:  on  the  other  hand,  a  fool 
remains  a  fool,  a  dull  blockhead,  to  his  last  hour,  even 
though  he  were  surrounded  by  houris  in  paradise.  This 
is  why  Goethe,  in  the  <(  West-ostlicher  Divan, w  says  that 
every  man,  whether  he  occupy  a  low  position  in  life,  or 
emerges  as  its  victor,  testifies  to  personality  as  the  great¬ 
est  factor  in  happiness :  — 

Volk  und  Knecht  und  Ueberwinder 
Sie  gestehen,  zu  jeder  Zeit, 

Hochstes  Gluck  der  Erdenkinder 
Sei  nur  die  Personlichkeit. 


DIVISION  OF  THE  SUBJECT 


7 


Common  experience  shows  that  the  subjective  element 
in  life  is  incomparably  more  important  for  our  happiness 
and  pleasure  than  the  objective,  from  such  sayings  as 
Hunger  is  the  best  sauce,  and  Youth  and  Age  cannot 
live  together,  up  to  the  life  of  the  Genius  and  the 
Saint.  Health  outweighs  all  other  blessings  so  much  that 
one  may  really  say  that  a  healthy  beggar  is  happier  than 
an  ailing  king.  A  quiet  and  cheerful  temperament,  happy 
in  the  enjoyment  of  a  perfectly  sound  physique,  an  intel¬ 
lect  clear,  lively,  penetrating  and  seeing  things  as  they 
are,  a  moderate  and  gentle  will,  and  therefore  a  good 
conscience  —  these  are  privileges  which  no  rank  or  wealth 
can  make  up  for  or  replace.  For  what  a  man  is  in  him¬ 
self,  what  accompanies  him  when  he  is  alone,  what  no 
one  can  give  or  take  away,  is  obviously  more  essential  to 
him  than  everything  he  has  in  the  way  of  possessions,  or 
even  what  he  may  be  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  An 
intellectual  man  in  complete  solitude  has  excellent  enter¬ 
tainment  in  his  own  thoughts  and  fancies,  while  no 
amount  or  diversity  of  social  pleasure,  theatres,  excur¬ 
sions  and  amusements,  can  ward  off  boredom  from  a 
dullard.  A  good,  temperate,  gentle  character  can  be 
happy  in  needy  circumstances,  while  a  covetous,  envious 
and  malicious  man,  even  if  he  be  the  richest  in  the 
world,  goes  miserable.  Nay  more;  to  one  who  has  the 
constant  delight  of  a  special  individuality,  with  a  high 
degree  of  intellect,  most  of  the  pleasures  which  are 
run  after  by  mankind  are  perfectly  superfluous;  they 
are  even  a  trouble  and  a  burden.  And  so  Horace  says 
of  himself,  that,  however  many  are  deprived  of  the 
fancy-goods  of  life,  there  is  one  at  least  who  can  live 
without  them  : — 

Gemmas,  marmor,  ebur,  Tyrrhena  sigilla,  tabellas. 

Argentum,  vestes  Gaetulo  murice  tinctas 

Sunt  qui  non  babeant,  est  qui  non  curat  habere; 

and  when  Socrates  saw  various  articles  of  luxury  spread 
out  for  sale,  he  exclaimed  :  How  much  there  is  in 
THE  WORLD  THAT  I  DO  NOT  WANT. 

So  the  first  and  most  essential  element  in  our  life’s 
happiness  is  what  we  are,  our  personality,  if  for  no  other 


8 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


reason  than  that  it  is  a  constant  factor  coming  into  play 
under  all  circumstances.  Besides,  unlike  the  blessings 
which  are  described  under  the  other  two  heads,  it  is  not 
the  sport  of  destiny  and  cannot  be  wrested  from  us;  and, 
so  far,  it  is  endowed  with  an  absolute  value  in  contrast  to 
the  merely  relative  worth  of  the  other  two.  The  conse¬ 
quence  of  this  is  that  it  is  much  more  difficult  than  people 
commonly  suppose  to  get  a  hold  on  a  man  from  without. 
But  here  the  all-powerful  agent,  Time,  comes  in  and  claims 
its  rights,  and  before  its  influence  physical  and  mental 
advantages  gradually  waste  away.  Moral  character  alone 
remains  inaccessible  to  it.  In  view  of  the  destructive  ef¬ 
fect  of  time,  it  seems,  indeed,  as  if  the  blessings  named 
under  the  other  two  heads,  of  which  time  cannot  directly 
rob  us,  were  superior  to  those  of  the  first.  Another  ad¬ 
vantage  might  be  claimed  for  them,  namely,  that  being  in 
their  very  nature  objective  and  external,  they  are  attain¬ 
able,  and  every  one  is  presented  with  the  possibility,  at 
least,  of  coming  into  possession  of  them;  while  what  is 
subjective  is  not  open  to  us  to  acquire,  but  making  its 
entry  by  a  kind  of  divine  right,  it  remains  for  life,  im¬ 
mutable,  inalienable,  an  inexorable  doom.  Let  me  quote 
those  lines  in  which  Goethe  describes  how  an  unalterable 
destiny  is  assigned  to  every  man  at  the  hour  of  his  birth, 
so  that  he  can  develop  only  in  the  lines  laid  down  for 
him,  as  it  were,  by  the  conjunctions  of  the  stars;  and  how 
the  Sibyl  and  the  prophets  declare  that  himself  a  man  can 
never  escape,  nor  any  power  of  time  avail  to  change  the 
path  on  which  his  life  is  cast: — 

Wie  an  dem  Tag,  der  dich  der  Welt  verliehen, 

Die  Sonne  stand  zum  Grusse  der  Planeten, 

Bist  alsobald  und  fort  und  fort  gediehen, 

Nach  dem  Gesetz,  wonach  du  angetreten. 

So  musst  du  sein,  dir  kannst  du  nicht  entfliehen, 

So  sagten  schon  Sibyllen  und  Propheten; 

Und  keine  Zeit  und  keine  Macht  zerstiickelt 
Gepragte  Form,  die  lebend  sich  entwickelt. 

The  only  thing  that  stands  in  our  power  to  achieve,  is 
to  make  the  most  advantageous  use  possible  of  the  per¬ 
sonal  qualities  we  possess,  and  accordingly  to  follow  such 
pursuits  only  as  will  call  them  into  play,  to  strive  after 


DIVISION  OF  THE  SUBJECT 


9 


the  kind  of  perfection  of  which  they  admit  and  to  avoid 
every  other;  consequently,  to  choose  the  position,  occupa¬ 
tion  and  manner  of  life  which  are  most  suitable  for  their 
development. 

Imagine  a  man  endowed  with  herculean  strength  who 
is  compelled  by  circumstances  to  follow  a  sedentary  occu¬ 
pation,  some  minute  exquisite  work  of  the  hands,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  or  to  engage  in  study  and  mental  labor  demanding 
quite  other  powers,  and  just  those  which  he  has  not  got, 
compelled,  that  is,  to  leave  unused  the  powers  in  which 
he  is  pre-eminently  strong;  a  man  placed  like  this  will 
never  feel  happy  all  his  life  through.  Even  more  miser¬ 
able  will  be  the  lot  of  the  man  with  intellectual  powers 
of  a  very  high  order,  who  has  to  leave  them  undeveloped 
and  unemployed,  in  the  pursuit  of  a  calling  which  does 
not  require  them,  some  bodily  labor,  perhaps,  for  which 
his  strength  is  insufficient.  Still,  in  a  case  of  this  kind, 
it  should  be  our  care,  especially  in  youth,  to  avoid  the 
precipice  of  presumption,  and  not  ascribe  to  ourselves  a 
superfluity  of  power  which  is  not  there. 

Since  the  blessings  described  under  the  first  head  de¬ 
cidedly  outweigh  those  contained  under  the  other  two,  it 
is  manifestly  a  wiser  course  to  aim  at  the  maintenance 
of  our  health  and  the  cultivation  of  our  faculties,  than  at 
the  amassing  of  wealth;  but  this  must  not  be  mistaken 
as  meaning  that  we  should  neglect  to  acquire  an  adequate 
supply  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  Wealth,  in  the  strict 
sense  of  the  word,  that  is,  great  superfluity,  can  do  little 
for  our  happiness;  and  many  rich  people  feel  unhappy  just 
because  they  are  without  any  true  mental  culture  or  knowl¬ 
edge,  and  consequently  have  no  objective  interests  which 
would  qualify  them  for  intellectual  occupations.  For  be¬ 
yond  the  satisfaction  of  some  real  and  natural  necessities, 
all  that  the  possession  of  wealth  can  achieve  has  a 
very  small  influence  upon  our  happiness,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word;  indeed,  wealth  rather  disturbs  it,  be¬ 
cause  the  preservation  of  property  entails  a  great  many 
unavoidable  anxieties.  And  still  men  are  a  thousand  times 
more  intent  on  becoming  rich  than  on  acquiring  culture, 
though  it  is  quite  certain  that  what  a  man  is  contributes 
much  more  to  his  happiness  than  what  he  has.  So  you 


IO 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


may  see  many  a  man,  as  industrious  as  an  ant,  ceaselessly 
occupied  from  morning  to  night  in  the  endeavor  to  in¬ 
crease  his  heap  of  gold.  Beyond  the  narrow  horizon  of 
means  to  this  end,  he  knows  nothing;  his  mind  is  a  blank, 
and  consequently  unsusceptible  to  any  other  influence. 
The  highest  pleasures,  those  of  the  intellect,  are  to  him 
inaccessible,  and  he  tries  in  vain  to  replace  them  by  the 
fleeting  pleasures  of  sense  in  which  he  indulges,  lasting 
but  a  brief  hour  and  at  tremendous  cost.  And  if  he  is 
lucky,  his  struggles  result  in  his  having  a  really  great 
pile  of  gold,  which  he  leaves  to  his  heir,  either  to  make 
it  still  larger  or  to  squander  it  in  extravagance.  A  life 
like  this,  though  pursued  with  a  sense  of  earnestness  and 
an  air  of  importance,  is  just  as  silly  as  many  another  which 
has  a  fool’s  cap  for  its  symbol. 

What  a  man  has  in  himself  is,  then,  the  chief  element 
in  his  happiness.  Because  this  is,  as  a  rule,  so  very  little, 
most  of  those  who  are  placed  beyond  the  struggle  with 
penury,  feel  at  bottom  quite  as  unhappy  as  those  who  are 
still  engaged  in  it.  Their  minds  are  vacant,  their  imag¬ 
ination  dull,  their  spirits  poor,  and  so  they  are  driven  to 
the  company  of  those  like  them  —  for  similis  simili  gaudet 
—  where  they  make  common  pursuit  of  pastime  and  en¬ 
tertainment,  consisting  for  the  most  part  in  sensual  pleas¬ 
ure,  amusement  of  every  kind,  and  finally,  in  excess  and 
libertinism.  A  young  man  of  rich  family  enters  upon  life 
with  a  large  patrimony,  and  often  runs  through  it  in  an 
incredibly  short  space  of  time,  in  vicious  extravagance; 
and  why  ?  Simply  because,  here  too,  the  mind  is  empty 
and  void,  and  so  the  man  is  bored  with  existence.  He 
was  sent  forth  into  the  world  outwardly  rich  but  inwardly 
poor,  and  his  vain  endeavor  was  to  make  his  external 
wealth  compensate  for  his  inner  poverty,  by  trying  to  ob¬ 
tain  everything  from  without,  like  an  old  man  who  seeks 
to  strengthen  himself  as  King  David  or  Marechal  de  Retz 
tried  to  do.  And  so  in  the  end  one  who  is  inwardly  poor 
comes  to  be  also  poor  outwardly. 

I  need  not  insist  upon  the  importance  of  the  other  two 
kinds  of  blessings  which  make  up  the  happiness  of  human 
life;  nowadays  the  value  of  possessing  them  is  too  well 
known  to  require  advertisement.  The  third  class,  it  is 


DIVISION  OF  THE  SUBJECT  n 

true,  may  seem,  compared  with  the  second,  of  a  very 
ethereal  character,  as  it  consists  only  of  other  people’s 
opinions.  Still  everyone  has  to  strive  for  reputation,  that 
is  to  say,  a  good  name.  Rank,  on  the  other  hand,  should 
be  aspired  to  only  by  those  who  serve  the  State,  and  fame 
by  very  few  indeed.  In  any  case,  reputation  is  looked 
upon  as  a  priceless  treasure,  and  fame  as  the  most  pre¬ 
cious  of  all  the  blessings  a  man  can  attain,  the  Golden 
Fleece,  as  it  were,  of  the  elect:  while  only  fools  will  pre¬ 
fer  rank  to  property.  The  second  and  third  classes,  more¬ 
over,  are  reciprocally  cause  and  effect;  so  far  that  is,  as 
Petronius’  maxim,  habes  liabeberis,  is  true ;  and  conversely, 
the  favor  of  others,  in  all  its  forms,  often  puts  us  in  the 
way  of  getting  what  we  want. 


CHAPTER  II. 


Personality,  or  What  a  Man  Is. 

We  have  already  seen,  in  general,  that  what  a  man  is 
contributes  much  more  to  his  happiness  than  what  he 
has,  or  how  he  is  regarded  by  others.  What  a  man  is, 
and  so  what  he  has  in  his  own  person,  is  always  the 
chief  thing  to  consider;  for  his  individuality  accompanies 
him  always  and  everywhere,  and  gives  its  color  to  all  his 
experiences.  In  every  kind  of  enjoyment,  for  instance, 
the  pleasure  depends  principally  upon  the  man  himself. 
Every  one  admits  this  in  regard  to  physical,  and  how 
much  truer  it  is  of  intellectual,  pleasure.  When  we  use 
that  English  expression,  (<to  enjoy  oneself,®  we  are  em¬ 
ploying  a  very  striking  and  appropriate  phrase;  for  ob¬ 
serve —  one  says  not  <(he  enjoys  Paris,®  but  (<he  enjoys 
himself  in  Paris.  ®  To  a  man  possessed  of  an  ill-conditioned 
individuality,  all  pleasure  is  like  delicate  wine  in  a  mouth 
made  bitter  with  gall.  Therefore,  in  the  blessings  as  well 
as  in  the  ills  of  life,  less  depends  upon  what  befalls  us 
than  upon  the  way  in  which  it  is  met,  that  is,  upon  the 
kind  and  degree  of  our  general  susceptibility.  What  a 
man  is  and  has  in  himself, —  in  a  word,  personality,  with 
all  it  entails,  is  the  only  immediate  and  direct  factor  in 
his  happiness  and  welfare.  All  else  is  mediate  and  indi¬ 
rect,  and  its  influence  can  be  neutralized  and  frustrated; 
but  the  influence  of  personality  never.  This  is  why  the 
envy  which  personal  qualities  excite  is  the  most  implaca¬ 
ble  of  all, —  as  it  is  also  the  most  carefully  dissembled. 

Further,  the  constitution  of  our  consciousness  is  the  ever 
present  and  lasting  element  in  all  we  do  or  suffer;  our 
individuality  is  persistently  at  work,  more  or  less,  at  every 
moment  of  our  life;  all  other  influences  are  temporal,  in¬ 
cidental,  fleeting,  and  subject  to  every  kind  of  chance  and 
change.  This  is  why  Aristotle  says:  It  is  not  wealth  but 
character  that  lasts.  And  just  for  the  same  reason  we 
(12) 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


13 


can  more  easily  bear  a  misfortune  which  comes  to  us  entirely 
from  without,  than  one  which  we  have  drawn  upon  our¬ 
selves;  for  fortune  may  always  change,  but  not  character. 
Therefore,  subjective  blessings,  —  a  noble  nature,  a  capable 
head,  a  joyful  temperament,  bright  spirits,  a  well-constituted, 
perfectly  sound  physique,  in  a  word,  mens  sana  in  corpore 
sano ,  are  the  first  and  most  important  elements  in  happi¬ 
ness;  so  that  we  should  be  more  intent  on  promoting  and 
preserving  such  qualities  than  on  the  possession  of  external 
wealth  and  external  honor. 

And  of  all  these,  the  one  which  makes  us  the  most 
directly  happy  is  a  genial  flow  of  good  spirits;  for  this 
excellent  quality  is  its  own  immediate  reward.  The  man 
who  is  cheerful  and  merry  has  always  a  good  reason  for 
being  so,  the  fact,  namely,  that  he  is  so.  There  is  noth¬ 
ing  which,  like  this  quality,  can  so  completely  replace  the 
loss  of  every  other  blessing.  If  you  know  anyone  who  is 
young,  handsome,  rich  and  esteemed,  and  you  want  to  know, 
further,  if  he  is  happy,  ask,  is  he  cheerful  and  genial  ?  and 
if  he  is,  what  does  it  matter  whether  he  is  young  or  old, 
straight  or  humpbacked,  poor  or  rich  ?  he  is  happy.  In 
my  early  days  I  once  opened  an  old  book  and  found  these 
words:  If  you  laugh  a  great  deal,  you  are  happy;  if 
you  cry  a  great  deal,  you  are  unhappy;  a  very  simple 
remark,  no  doubt;  but  just  because  it  is  so  simple  I  have 
never  been  able  to  forget  it,  even  though  it  is  in  the  last 
degree  a  truism.  So  if  cheerfulness  knocks  at  our  door, 
we  should  throw  it  wide  open,  for  it  never  comes  inop¬ 
portunely.  Instead  of  that,  we  often  make  scruples  about 
letting  it  in.  We  want  to  be  quite  sure  that  we  have 
every  reason  to  be  contented;  then  we  are  afraid  that 
cheerfulness  of  spirits  may  interfere  with  serious  reflec¬ 
tions  or  weighty  cares.  Cheerfulness  is  a  direct  and  im¬ 
mediate  gain,  the  very  coin,  as  it  were,  of  happiness,  and 
not,  like  all  else,  merely  a  cheque  upon  the  bank;  for  it 
alone  makes  us  immediately  happy  in  the  present  moment, 
and  that  is  the  highest  blessing  for  beings  like  us,  whose 
existence  is  but  an  infinitesimal  moment  between  two 
eternities.  To  secure  and  promote  this  feeling  of  cheer¬ 
fulness  should  be  the  supreme  aim  of  all  our  endeavors 
after  happiness. 


14 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


Now  it  is  certain  that  nothing  contributes  so  little 
to  cheerfulness  as  riches,  or  so  much,  as  health.  Is  it 
not  in  the  lower  classes,  the  so-called  working  classes, 
more  especially  those  of  them  who  live  in  the  country, 
that  we  see  cheerful  and  contented  faces  ?  and  is  it 
not  among  the  rich,  the  upper  classes,  that  we  find 
faces  full  of  ill-humor  and  vexation  ?  Consequently  we 
should  try  as  much  as  possible  to  maintain  a  high 
degree  of  health;  for  cheerfulness  is  the  very  flower 
of  it.  I  need  hardly  say  what  one  must  do  to  be 
healthy  —  avoid  every  kind  of  excess,  all  violent  and 
unpleasant  emotion,  all  mental  overstrain,  take  daily 
exercise  in  the  open  air,  cold  baths  and  such  like 
hygienic  measures.  For  without  a  proper  amount  of 
daily  exercise  no  one  can  remain  healthy;  all  the  pro¬ 
cesses  of  life  demand  exercise  for  the  due  performance 
of  their  functions,  exercise  not  only  of  the  parts  more 
immediately  concerned,  but  also  of  the  whole  body. 
For,  as  Aristotle  rightly  says,  Life  is  movement;  it  is 
its  very  essence.  Ceaseless  and  rapid  motion  goes  on 
in  every  part  of  the  organism.  The  heart,  with  its 
complicated  double  systole  and  diastole,  beats  strongly 
and  untiringly;  with  twenty-eight  beats  it  has  to  drive 
the  whole  of  the  blood  through  arteries,  veins  and  cap¬ 
illaries;  the  lungs  pump  like  a  steam-engine,  without 
intermission ;  the  intestines  are  always  in  peristaltic 
action;  the  glands  are  all  constantly  absorbing  and  se¬ 
creting  ;  even  the  brain  has  a  double  motion  of  its 
own,  with  every  beat  of  the  pulse  and  every  breath 
we  draw.  When  people  can  get  no  exercise  at  all,  as 
is  the  case  with  the  countless  numbers  who  are  con¬ 
demned  to  a  sedentary  life,  there  is  a  glaring  and  fatal 
disproportion  between  outward  inactivity  and  inner  tumult. 
For  this  ceaseless  internal  motion  requires  some  external 
counterpart,  and  the  want  of  it  produces  effects  like  those 
of  emotion  which  we  are  obliged  to  suppress.  Even  trees 
must  be  shaken  by  the  wind,  if  they  are  to  thrive.  The 
rule  which  finds  its  application  here  may  be  most  briefly 
expressed  in  Latin:  omnis  motus ,  quo  celerior,  eo  magis  motus. 

How  much  our  happiness  depends  upon  our  spirits,  and 
these  again  upon  our  state  of  health,  may  be  seen  by  com- 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


i5 


paring  the  influence  which  the  same  external  circumstances 
or  events  have  upon  us  when  we  are  well  and  strong  with 
the  effect  which  they  have  when  we  are  depressed  and 
troubled  with  ill-health.  It  is  not  what  things  are  object¬ 
ively  and  in  themselves,  but  what  they  are  for  us,  in  our 
way  of  looking  at  them,  that  makes  us  happy  or  the  re¬ 
verse.  As  Epictetus  says,  Men  are  not  influenced  by 

THINGS  BUT  BY  THEIR  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  THINGS.  And,  in 

general,  nine-tenths  of  our  happiness  depends  upon  health 
alone.  With  health,  everything  is  a  source  of  pleasure: 
without  it,  nothing  else,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  enjoyable; 
even  the  other  personal  blessings, —  a  great  mind,  a  happy 
temperament  —  are  degraded  and  dwarfed  for  want  of  it. 
So  it  is  really  with  good  reason  that,  when  two  people 
meet,  the  first  thing  they  do  is  to  inquire  after  each  other’s 
health,  and  to  express  the  hope  that  it  is  good;  for  good 
health  is  by  far  the  most  important  element  in  human 
happiness.  It  follows  from  all  this  that  the  greatest  of 
follies  is  to  sacrifice  health  for  any  other  kind  of  happiness, 
whatever  it  may  be,  for  gain,  advancement,  learning  or 
fame,  let  alone,  then,  for  fleeting  sensual  pleasures.  Every¬ 
thing  else  should  rather  be  postponed  to  it. 

But  however  much  health  may  contribute  to  that  flow 
of  good  spirits  which  is  so  essential  to  our  happiness, 
good  spirits  do  not  entirely  depend  upon  health;  for  a 
man  may  be  perfectly  sound  in  his  physique  and  still 
possess  a  melancholy  temperament  and  be  generally  given 
up  to  sad  thoughts.  The  ultimate  cause  of  this  is  un¬ 
doubtedly  to  be  found  in  innate,  and  therefore  unalter¬ 
able  physical  constitution,  especially  in  the  more  or  less 
normal  relation  of  a  man’s  sensitiveness  to  his  muscular 
and  vital  energy.  Abnormal  sensitiveness  produces  in¬ 
equality  of  spirits,  a  predominating  melancholy,  with 
periodical  fits  of  unrestrained  liveliness.  A  genius  is  one 
whose  nervous  power  or  sensitiveness  is  largely  in  excess; 
as  Aristotle  has  very  correctly  observed,  Men  distin¬ 
guished  IN  PHILOSOPHY,  POLITICS,  POETRY  OR  ART,  APPEAR 
TO  BE  ALL  OF  A  MELANCHOLY  TEMPERAMENT.  This  is  doubt- 

less  the  passage  which  Cicero  has  in  his  mind  when  he 
says,  as  he  often  does,  Aristoteles  ait  omnes  ingeniosos 
melancholicos  esse.  Shakespeare  has  very  neatly  expressed 


i6 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


this  radical  and  innate  diversity  of  temperament  in  those 
lines  in  <(  The  Merchant  of  Venice”: 

Nature  has  framed  strange  fellows  in  her  time; 

Some  that  will  evermore  peep  through  their  eyes, 

And  laugh,  like  parrots  at  a  bag-piper; 

And  others  of  such  vinegar  aspect, 

That  they’ll  not  show  their  teeth  in  way  of  smile, 

Though  Nestor  swear  the  jest  be  laughable. 

This  is  the  difference  which  Plato  draws  between 
euKO/lo?  and  dixmoAos  —  the  man  of  easy,  and  the  man  of 
difficult  disposition  —  in  proof  of  which  he  refers  to  the 
varying  degrees  of  susceptibility  which  different  people 
show  to  pleasurable  and  painful  impressions;  so  that  one 
man  will  laugh  at  what  makes  another  despair.  As  a 
rule,  the  stronger  the  susceptibility  to  unpleasant  impres¬ 
sions,  the  weaker  is  the  susceptibility  to  pleasant  ones,  and 
vice  versa.  If  it  is  equally  possible  for  an  event  to  turn 
out  well  or  ill,  the  duanoXoc  will  be  annoyed  or  grieved  if 
the  issue  is  unfavorable,  and  will  not  rejoice,  should  it  be 
happy.  On  the  other  hand,  the  e&co/lo?  will  neither  worry 
nor  fret  over  an  unfavorable  issue,  but  rejoice  if  it  turns 
out  well.  If  the  one  is  successful  in  nine  out  of  ten  under¬ 
takings,  he  will  not  be  pleased,  but  rather  annoyed  that 
pne  has  miscarried;  while  the  other,  if  only  a  single  one 
succeeds,  will  manage  to  find  consolation  in  the  fact  and 
remain  cheerful.  But  here  is  another  instance  of  the 
truth,  that  hardly  any  evil  is  entirely  without  its  com¬ 
pensation;  for  the  misfortunes  and  sufferings  which  the 
dixTKoXoi ,  that  is,  people  of  gloomy  and  anxious  character, 
have  to  overcome,  are,  on  the  whole,  more  imaginary  and 
therefore  less  real  than  those  which  befall  the  gay  and 
careless;  for  a  man  who  paints  everything  black,  who 
constantly  fears  the  worst  and  takes  measures  accordingly, 
will  not  be  disappointed  so  often  in  this  world,  as  one  who 
always  looks  upon  the  bright  side  of  things.  And  when 
a  morbid  affection  of  the  nerves,  or  a  derangement  of  the 
digestive  organs,  plays  into  the  hand  of  an  innate  tend¬ 
ency  to  gloom,  this  tendency  may  reach  such  a  height 
that  permanent  discomfort  produces  a  weariness  of  life. 
So  arises  an  inclination  to  suicide,  which  even  the  most 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


17 


trivial  unpleasantness  may  actually  bring  about;  nay,  when 
the  tendency  attains  its  worst  form,  it  may  be  occasioned 
by  nothing  in  particular,  but  a  man  may  resolve  to  put 
an  end  to  his  existence,  simply  because  he  is  permanently 
unhappy,  and  then  coolly  and  firmly  carry  out  his  deter¬ 
mination;  as  may  be  seen  by  the  way  in  which  the  suf¬ 
ferer,  when  placed  under  supervision,  as  he  usually  is, 
eagerly  waits  to  seize  the  first  unguarded  moment,  when, 
without  a  shudder,  without  a  struggle  or  recoil,  he  may 
use  the  now  natural  and  welcome  means  of  effecting  his 
release.  Even  the  healthiest,  perhaps  even  the  most 
cheerful  man,  may  resolve  upon  death  under  certain 
circumstances;  when,  for  instance,  his  sufferings,  or  his 
fears  of  some  inevitable  misfortune,  reach  such  a  pitch 
as  to  outweigh  the  terrors  of  death.  The  only  difference 
lies  in  the  degree  of  suffering  necessary  to  bring  about 
the  fatal  act,  a  degree  ^hich  will  be  high  in  the  case  of 
a  cheerful,  and  low  in  that  of  a  gloomy  man.  The 
greater  the  melancholy,  the  lower  need  the  degree  be;  in 
the  end,  it  may  even  sink  to  zero.  But  if  a  man  is  cheer¬ 
ful,  and  his  spirits  are  supported  by  good  health,  it  re¬ 
quires  a  high  degree  of  suffering  to  make  him  lay  hands 
upon  himself.  There  are  countless  steps  in  the  scale  be¬ 
tween  the  two  extremes  of  suicide,  the  suicide  which 
springs  merely  from  a  morbid  intensification  of  innate 
gloom,  and  the  suicide  of  the  healthy  and  cheerful  man, 
who  has  entirely  objective  grounds  for  putting  an  end  to 
his  existence. 

Beauty  is  partly  an  affair  of  health.  It  may  be  reck¬ 
oned  as  a  personal  advantage;  though  it  does  not,  prop¬ 
erly  speaking,  contribute  directly  to  our  happiness.  It 
does  so  indirectly,  by  impressing  other  people;  and  it  is 
no  unimportant  advantage,  even  in  man.  Beauty  is  an 
open  letter  of  recommendation,  predisposing  the  heart  to 
favor  the  person  who  presents  it.  As  is  well  said  in 
those  lines  of  Homer,  the  gift  of  beauty  is  not  lightly  to 
be  thrown  away,  that  glorious  gift  which  none  can  bestow 
save  the  gods  alone  — 

outoi  aTtoftXrjT  lar\  Oecov  IptnuSia  dajpaf 

offffa  ksv  auro\  dw<nvy  Ikwv  d'oun  av  rc9  k'XoiTO. 


i8 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


The  most  general  survey  shows  us  that  the  two  foes  of 
human  happiness  are  pain  and  boredom.  We  may  go 
further,  and  say  that  in  the  degree  in  which  we  are  for¬ 
tunate  enough  to  get  away  from  the  one,  we  approach 
the  other.  Life  presents,  in  fact,  a  more  or  less  violent 
oscillation  between  the  two.  The  reason  of  this  is  that 
each  of  these  two  poles  stands  in  a  double  antagonism  to 
the  other,  external  or  objective,  and  inner  or  subjective. 
Needy  surroundings  and  poverty  produce  pain;  while,  if 
a  man  is  more  than  well  off,  he  is  bored.  Accordingly, 
while  the  lower  classes  are  engaged  in  a  ceaseless  strug¬ 
gle  with  need,  in  other  words  with  pain,  the  upper  carry 
on  a  constant  and  often  desperate  battle  with  boredom.* 
The  inner  or  subjective  antagonism  arises  from  the  fact 
that,  in  the  individual,  susceptibility  to  pain  varies  in¬ 
versely  with  susceptibility  to  boredom,  because  suscepti¬ 
bility  is  directly  proportionate  to  mental  power.  Let  me 
explain.  A  dull  mind  is,  as  a  rule  associated  with  dull 
sensibilities,  nerves  which  no  stimulus  can  affect,  a  tem¬ 
perament,  in  short,  which  does  not  feel  pain  or  anxiety 
very  much,  however  great  or  terrible  it  may  be.  Now, 
intellectual  dullness  is  at  the  bottom  of  that  vacuity  of 
soul  which  is  stamped  on  so  many  faces,  a  state  of  mind 
which  betrays  itself  by  a  constant  and  lively  attention  to 
all  the  trivial  circumstances  in  the  external  world.  This 
is  the  true  source  of  boredom  —  a  continual  panting  after 
excitement,  in  order  to  have  a  pretext  for  giving  the 
mind  and  spirits  something  to  occupy  them.  The  kind  of 
things  people  choose  for  this  purpose  shows  that  they  are 
not  very  particular,  as  witness  the  miserable  pastimes  they 
have  recourse  to,  and  their  ideas  of  social  pleasure  and 
conversation;  or  again,  the  number  of  people  who  gossip 
on  the  doorstep  or  gape  out  of  the  window.  It  is  mainly 
because  of  this  inner  vacuity  of  soul  that  people  go  in 
quest  of  society,  diversion,  amusement,  luxury  of  every 
sort,  which  lead  many  to  extravagance  and  misery.  Noth¬ 
ing  is  so  good  a  protection  against  such  misery  as  inward 

*And  the  extremes  meet;  for  the  lowest  state  of  civilization,  a 
nomad  or  wandering  life,  finds  its  counterpart  in  the  highest,  where 
everyone  is  at  times  a  tourist.  The  earlier  stage  was  a  case  of 
necessity;  the  latter  is  a  remedy  for  boredom. 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


19 


wealth,  the  wealth  of  the  mind,  because  the  greater  it 
grows,  the  less  room  it  leaves  for  boredom.  The  inex¬ 
haustible  activity  of  thought!  finding  ever  new  material 
to  work  upon  in  the  multifarious  phenomena  of  self  and 
nature,  and  able  and  ready  to  form  new  combinations  of 
them,  there  you  have  something  that  invigorates  the 
mind,  and  apart  from  the  moments  of  relaxation,  sets  it 
far  above  the  reach  of  boredom. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  this  high  degree  of  intelligence 
is  rooted  in  a  high  degree  of  susceptibility,  greater  strength 
of  will,  greater  passionateness;  and  from  the  union  of  these 
qualities  comes  an  increased  capacity  for  emotion,  an  en¬ 
hanced  sensibility  to  all  mental  and  even  bodily  pain, 
greater  impatience  of  obstacles,  greater  resentment  of  in¬ 
terruption;  all  of  which  tendencies  are  augmented  by  the 
power  of  the  imagination,  the  vivid  character  of  the  whole 
range  of  thought,  including  what  is  disagreeable.  This 
applies,  in  varying  degrees,  to  every  step  in  the  long  scale 
of  mental  power,  from  the  veriest  dunce  to  the  greatest 
genius  that  ever  lived.  Therefore  the  nearer  anyone  is, 
either  from  a  subjective  or  from  an  objective  point  of  view, 
to  one  of  these  sources  of  suffering  in  human  life,  the 
farther  he  is  from  the  other.  And  so  a  man’s  natural 
bent  will  lead  him  to  make  his  objective  world  conform 
to  his  subjective  as  much  as  possible;  that  is  to  say,  he 
will  take  the  greatest  measures  against  that  form  of  suf¬ 
fering  to  which  he  is  most  liable.  The  wise  man  will, 
above  all,  strive  after  freedom  from  pain  and  annoyance, 
quiet  and  leisure,  consequently  a  tranquil,  modest  life, 
with  as  few  encounters  as  may  be;  and  so,  after  a  little 
experience  of  his  so-called  fellow-men,  he  will  elect  to  live 
in  retirement,  or  even,  if  he  is  a  man  of  great  intellect, 
in  solitude.  For  the  more  a  man  has  in  himself,  the  less 
he  will  want  from  other  people,  the  less,  indeed,  other  peo¬ 
ple  can  be  to  him.  This  is  why  a  high  degree  of  intellect 
tends  to  make  a  man  unsocial.  True,  if  quality  of  intel¬ 
lect  could  be  made  up  for  by  quantity,  it  might  be  worth 
while  to  live  even  in  the  great  world ;  but,  unfortunately, 
a  hundred  fools  together  will  not  make  one  wise  man. 

But  the  individual  who  stands  at  the  other  end  of  the 
scale  is  no  sooner  free  from  the  pangs  of  need  than  he 


20 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


endeavors  to  get  pastime  and  society  at  any  cost,  taking 
up  with  the  first  person  he  meets,  and  avoiding  nothing  so 
much  as  himself.  For  in  solitude,  where  every  one  is 
thrown  upon  his  own  resources,  what  a  man  has  in  him¬ 
self  comes  to  light:  the  fool  in  fine  raiment  groans  under 
the  burden  of  his  miserable  personality,  a  burden  which 
he  can  never  throw  off,  while  the  man  of  talent  peoples 
the  waste  places  with  his  animating  thoughts.  Seneca 
declares  that  folly  is  its  own  burden,  omnis  stultitia  laborat 
fastidio  sui ,  a  very  true  saying,  with  which  may  be  com¬ 
pared  the  words  of  Jesus,  the  son  of  Sirach,  The  life  of 
a  fool  is  worse  than  death.  And,  as  a  rule,  it  will  be 
found  that  a  man  is  sociable  just  in  the  degree  in  which 
he  is  intellectually  poor  and  generally  vulgar.  For  one’s 
choice  in  this  world  does  not  go  much  beyond  solitude  on 
one  side  and  vulgarity  on  the  other.  It  is  said  that  the 
most  sociable  of  all  people  are  the  negroes,  and  they  are 
at  the  bottom  of  the  scale  in  intellect.  I  remember  read¬ 
ing  once  in  a  French  paper  that  the  blacks  in  North 
America,  whether  free  or  enslaved,  are  fond  of  shutting 
themselves  up  in  large  numbers  in  the  smallest  space, 
because  they  cannot  have  too  much  of  one  another’s 
snub-nosed  company. 

The  brain  may  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  parasite  of 
the  organism,  a  pensioner,  as  it  were,  who  dwells  with  the 
body;  and  leisure,  that  is,  the  time  one  has  for  the  free 
enjoyment  of  one’s  consciousness  or  individuality,  is  the 
fruit  or  produce  of  the  rest  of  existence,  which  is  in  gen¬ 
eral  only  labor  and  effort.  But  what  does  most  people’s 
leisure  yield?  boredom  and  dullness;  except,  of  course, 
when  it  is  occupied  with  sensual  pleasure  or  folly.  How 
little  such  leisure  is  worth  may  be  seen  in  the  way  in 
which  it  is  spent;  and,  as  Ariosto  observes,  how  miser¬ 
able  are  the  idle  hours  of  ignorant  men ! —  ozio  lungo  d'uom- 
ini  ignoranti.  Ordinary  people  think  merely  how  they 
shall  spend  their  time;  a  man  of  any  talent  tries  to  use 
it.  The  reason  why  people  of  limited  intellect  are  apt  to 
be  bored  is  that  their  intellect  is  absolutely  nothing  more 
than  the  means  by  which  the  motive  power  of  the  will 
is  put  into  force ;  and  whenever  there  is  nothing  particular 
to  set  the  will  in  motion,  it  rests,  and  their  intellect  takes 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


21 


a  holiday,  because,  equally  with  the  will,  it  requires  some¬ 
thing  external  to  bring  it  into  play.  The  result  is  an 
awful  stagnation  of  whatever  power  a  man  has  —  in  a 
word,  boredom.  To  counteract  this  miserable  feeling,  men 
run  to  trivialities  which  please  for  the  moment  they  are 
taken  up,  hoping  thus  to  engage  the  will  in  order  to  rouse 
it  to  action,  and  so  set  the  intellect  in  motion;  for  it  is 
the  latter  which  has  to  give  effect  to  these  motives  of  the 
will.  Compared  with  real  and  natural  motives,  these  are 
but  as  paper  money  to  coin ;  for  their  value  is  only  arbi¬ 
trary —  card  games  and  the  like,  which  have  been  invented 
for  this  very  purpose.  And  if  there  is  nothing  else  to  be 
done,  a  man  will  twirl  his  thumbs  or  beat  the  devil’s  tat¬ 
too  ;  or  a  cigar  may  be  a  welcome  substitute  for  exercis¬ 
ing  his  brains.  Hence,  in  all  countries  the  chief  occupation 
of  society  is  card-playing  and  it  is  the  gauge  of  its  value, 
and  an  outward  sign  that  it  is  bankrupt  in  thought.  Be¬ 
cause  people  have  no  thoughts  to  deal  in,  they  deal  cards, 
and  try  and  win  one  another’s  money.  Idiots!  But  I  do 
not  wish  to  be  unjust;  so  let  me  remark  that  it  may 
certainly  be  said  in  defense  of  card-playing  that  it  is  a 
preparation  for  the  world  and  for  business  life,  because 
one  learns  thereby  how  to  make  a  clever  use  of  fortuitous 
but  unalterable  circumstances  (cards,  in  this  case),  and  to 
get  as  much  out  of  them  as  one  can;  and  to  do  this  a 
man  must  learn  a  little  dissimulation,  and  how  to  put  a 
good  face  upon  a  bad  business.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  exactly  for  this  reason  that  card-playing  is  so  demor¬ 
alizing,  since  the  whole  object  of  it  is  to  employ  every 
kind  of  trick  and  machination  in  order  to  win  what  belongs 
to  another.  And  a  habit  of  this  sort,  learned  at  the  card- 
table,  strikes  root  and  pushes  its  way  into  practical  life; 
and  in  the  affairs  of  every  day  a  man  gradually  comes  to 
regard  meum  and  tuum  in  much  the  same  light  as  cards, 
and  to  consider  that  he  may  use  to  the  utmost  whatever 
advantages  he  possesses,  so  long  as  he  does  not  come  within 
the  arm  of  the  law.  Examples  of  what  I  mean  are  of 
daily  occurrence  in  mercantile  life.  Since,  then,  leisure  is 
the  flower,  or  rather  the  fruit,  of  existence,  as  it  puts  a 
man  into  possession  of  himself,  those  are  happy  indeed 
who  possess  something  real  in  themselves.  But  what  do 


22 


THE  "WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


you  get  from  most  people’s  leisure?  only  a  good-for-nothing 
fellow,  who  is  terribly  bored  and  a  burden  to  himself.  Let 
us,  therefore,  rejoice,  dear  brethren,  for  we  are  not  chil¬ 
dren  OF  THE  BONDWOMAN,  BUT  OF  THE  FREE. 

Further,  as  no  land  is  so  well  off  as  that  which  requires 
few  imports,  or  none  at  all,  so  the  happiest  man  is  one 
who  has  enough  in  his  own  inner  wealth,  and  asks  little 
or  nothing  from  outside  for  his  maintenance.  For  im¬ 
ports  are  expensive  things,  reveal  dependence,  entail  dan¬ 
ger,  occasion  trouble,  and,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  are 
a  poor  substitute  for  home  produce.  No  man  ought  to 
expect  much  from  others,  or,  in  general,  from  the  external 
world.  What  one  human  being  can  be  to  another  is  not 
a  very  great  deal ;  in  the  end  every  one  stands  alone,  and 
the  important  thing  is  who  it  is  that  stands  alone.  Here, 
then,  is  another  application  of  the  general  truth  which 
Goethe  recognizes  in  (<  Dichtung  und  Wahrheit  ”  (Bk.  III.), 
that  in  everything  a  man  has  ultimately  to  appeal  to  him¬ 
self  ;  or,  as  Goldsmith  puts  it  in  (<  The  Traveller”  : 

Still  to  ourselves  in  every  place  consign’d 

Our  own  felicity  we  make  or  find. 

Himself  is  the  source  of  the  best  and  most  a  man  can 
be  or  achieve.  The  more  this  is  so  —  the  more  a  man 
finds  his  sources  of  pleasure  in  himself  —  the  happier  he 
will  be.  Therefore,  it  is  with  great  truth  that  Aristotle 
says,  To  be  happy  means  to  be  self-sufficient.  For  all 
other  sources  of  happiness  are  in  their  nature  most  un¬ 
certain,  precarious,  fleeting,  the  sport  of  chance;  and  so 
even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances  they  can 
easily  be  exhausted;  nay,  this  is  unavoidable,  because 
they  are  not  always  within  reach.  And  in  old  age  these 
sources  of  happiness  most  necessarily  dry  up:  love  leaves 
us  then,  and  wit,  desire  to  travel,  delight  in  horses,  apti¬ 
tude  for  social  intercourse;  friends  and  relations,  too,  are 
taken  from  us  by  death.  Then  more  than  ever,  it  de¬ 
pends  upon  what  a  man  has  in  himself ;  for  this  will  stick 
to  him  longest ;  and  at  any  period  of  life  it  is  the  only 
genuine  and  lasting  source  of  happiness.  There  is  not 
much  to  be  got  anywhere  in  the  world.  It  is  filled  with 
misery  and  pain;  and  if  a  man  escapes  these,  boredom 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


23 


lies  in  wait  for  him  at  every  corner.  Nay  more;  it  is 
evil  which  generally  has  the  upper  hand,  and  folly  makes 
the  most  noise.  Fate  is  cruel,  and  mankind  pitiable.  In 
such  a  world  as  this,  a  man  who  is  rich  in  himself  is  like 
a  bright,  warm,  happy  room  at  Christmastide,  while  with¬ 
out  are  the  frost  and  snow  of  a  December  night.  There¬ 
fore,  without  doubt,  the  happiest  destiny  on  earth  is  to 
have  the  rare  gift  of  a  rich  individuality,  and,  more  espe¬ 
cially,  to  be  possessed  of  a  good  endowment  of  intellect; 
this  is  the  happiest  destiny,  though  it  may  not  be,  after 
all,  a  very  brilliant  one.  There  was  great  wisdom  in  that 
remark  which  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden  made,  in  her 
nineteenth  year,  about  Descartes,  who  had  then  lived  for 
twenty  years  in  the  deepest  solitude  in  Holland,  and, 
apart  from  report,  was  known  to  her  only  by  a  single 
essay:  M.  Descartes,  she  said,  is  the  happiest  of  men, 

AND  HIS  CONDITION  SEEMS  TO  ME  MUCH  TO  BE  ENVIED.  Of 

course,  as  was  the  case  with  Descartes,  external  cir¬ 
cumstances  must  be  favorable  enough  to  allow  a  man  to 
be  master  of  his  life  and  happiness;  or,  as  we  read  in 
<(  Ecclesiastes,”  Wisdom  is  good,  together  with  an  inher¬ 
itance,  AND  PROFITABLE  UNTO  THEM  THAT  SEE  THE  SUN. 
The  man  to  whom  nature  and  fate  have  granted  the  bless¬ 
ing  of  wisdom,  will  be  most  anxious  and  careful  to  keep 
open  the  fountains  of  happiness  which  he  has  in  himself ; 
and  for  this,  independence  and  leisure  are  necessary.  To 
obtain  them,  he  will  be  willing  to  moderate  his  desires 
and  harbor  his  resources;  all  the  more  because  he  is  not, 
like  others,  restricted  to  the  external  world  for  his  pleas¬ 
ures.  So  he  will  not  be  misled  by  expectations  of  office, 
or  money,  or  the  favor  and  applause  of  his  fellow-men, 
into  surrendering  himself  in  order  to  conform  to  low  de¬ 
sires  and  vulgar  tastes ;  nay,  in  such  a  case  he  will  follow 
the  advice  that  Horace  gives  in  his  epistle  to  Maecenas. 
It  is  a  great  piece  of  folly  to  sacrifice  the  inner  for  the 
outer  man,  to  give  the  whole  or  the  greater  part  of  one’s 
quiet  leisure  and  independence  for  splendor,  rank,  pomp, 
titles  and  honor.  This  is  what  Goethe  did.  My  good 
luck  drew  me  quite  in  the  other  direction. 

The  truth  which  I  am  insisting  upon  here,  the  truth, 
namely,  that  the  chief  source  of  human  happiness  is 


24 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


internal,  is  confirmed  by  that  most  accurate  observation 
of  Aristotle  in  the  <(  Nichomachean  Ethics,  >y  that  every 
pleasure  presupposes  some  sort  of  activity,  the  application 
of  some  sort  of  power,  without  which  it  cannot  exist. 
The  doctrine  of  Aristotle’s,  that  a  man’s  happiness  con¬ 
sists  in  the  free  exercise  of  his  highest  faculties,  is  also 
enunciated  by  Stobaeus  in  his  exposition  of  the  Peripa¬ 
tetic  philosophy:  Happiness,  he  says,  means  vigorous  and 

SUCCESSFUL  ACTIVITY  IN  ALL  VOUR  UNDERTAKINGS;  and  he 

explains  that  by  vigor  (aplri j)  he  means  mastery  in  any¬ 
thing,  whatever  it  be.  Now,  the  original  purpose  of  those 
forces  with  which  nature  has  endowed  man  is  to  enable 
him  to  struggle  against  the  difficulties  which  beset  him 
on  all  sides.  But  if  this  struggle  comes  to  an  end,  his 
unemployed  forces  become  a  burden  to  him;  and  he  has 
to  set  to  work  and  play  with  them,  use  them,  I  mean, 
for  no  purpose  at  all,  beyond  avoiding  the  other  source 
of  human  suffering,  boredom,  to  which  he  is  at  once 
exposed.  It  is  the  upper  classes,  people  of  wealth,  who 
are  the  greatest  victims  of  boredom.  Lucretius  long  ago 
described  their  miserable  state,  and  the  truth  of  his 
description  may  be  still  recognized  to-day  in  the  life  of 
every  great  capital  —  where  the  rich  man  is  seldom  in  his 
own  halls,  because  it  bores  him  to  be  there,  and  still  he 
returns  thither,  because  he  is  no  better  off  outside;  or 
else  he  is  away  in  posthaste  to  his  house  in  the  country, 
as  if  it  were  on  fire;  and  he  is  no  sooner  arrived  there, 
than  he  is  bored  again,  and  seeks  to  forget  everything 
in  sleep,  or  else  hurries  back  to  town  once  more. 

Exit  saepe  foras  magnis  ex  ce dibus  ille , 

Esse  domi  quern  pertaesum  est,  subitoque  reventat ; 

Quippe  forts  nihilo  melius  qui  sentiat  esse. 

Cur r it,  agens  mannos ,  ad  villain  precipitanter , 

A  uxilium  tectis  quasi  ferre  ardentibus  ins  tans: 

Oscitat  extemplo ,  tetigit  quum  limina  villae; 

Aut  abit  in  somnurn  gravis ,  atque  oblivia  quaerit ; 

Aut  etiam  proper ans  urbem  petit  atque  revisit. 

In  their  youth,  such  people  must  have  had  a  superfluity 
of  muscular  and  vital  energy,  powers  which,  unlike  those 
of  the  mind,  cannot  maintain  their  full  degree  of  vigor 
very  long;  and  in  later  years  they  either  have  no  mental 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


25 


powers  at  all,  or  cannot  develop  any  for  want  of  employ¬ 
ment  which  would  bring  them  into  play;  so  that  they  are 
in  a  wretched  plight.  Will,  however,  they  still  possess, 
for  this  is  the  only  power  that  is  inexhaustible;  and  they 
try  to  stimulate  their  will  by  passionate  excitement,  such 
as  games  of  chance  for  high  stakes  —  undoubtedly  a  most 
degrading  form  of  vice.  And  one  may  say  generally  that 
if  a  man  finds  himself  with  nothing  to  do,  he  is  sure  to 
choose  some  amusement  suited  to  the  kind  of  power  in 
which  he  excels,  bowls,  it  may  be,  or  chess;  hunting  or 
painting;  horse-racing  or  music;  cards,  or  poetry ,' heraldry, 
philosophy,  or  some  other  dilettante  interest.  We  might 
classify  these  interests  methodically,  by  reducing  them  to 
expressions  of  the  three  fundamental  powers,  the  factors, 
that  is  to  say,  which  go  to  make  up  the  physiological 
constitution  of  man;  and  further,  by  considering  these 
powers  by  themselves,  and  apart  from  any  of  the  definite 
aims  which  they  may  subserve,  and  simply  as  affording 
three  sources  of  possible  pleasure,  out  of  which  every 
man  will  choose  what  suits  him,  according  as  he  excels 
in  one  direction  or  another. 

First  of  all  come  the  pleasures  of  vital  energy,  of  food, 
drink,  digestion,  rest  and  sleep;  and  there  are  parts  of  the 
world  where  it  can  be  said  that  these  are  characteristic 
and  national  pleasures.  Secondly,  there  are  the  pleasures 
of  muscular  energy,  such  as  walking,  running,  wrestling, 
dancing,  fencing,  riding  and  similar  athletic  pursuits,  which 
sometimes  take  the  form  of  sport,  and  sometimes  of  a 
military  life  and  real  warfare.  Thirdly,  there  are  the 
pleasures  of  sensibility,  such  as  observation,  thought,  feel¬ 
ing,  or  a  taste  for  poetry  or  culture,  music,  learning,  read¬ 
ing,  meditation,  invention,  philosophy  and  the  like.  As 
regards  the  value,  relative  worth  and  duration  of  each  of 
these  kinds  of  pleasure,  a  great  deal  might  be  said,  which, 
however,  I  leave  the  reader  to  supply.  But  every  one  will 
see  that  the  nobler  the  power  which  is  brought  into  play, 
the  greater  will  be  the  pleasure  which  it  gives;  for  pleas¬ 
ure  always  involves  the  use  of  one's  own  powers,  and  hap¬ 
piness  consists  in  a  frequent  repetition  of  pleasure.  No 
one  will  deny  that  in  this  respect  the  pleasures  of  sensi¬ 
bility  occupy  a  higher  place  than  either  of  the  other  two 


26 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


fundamental  kinds;  which  exist  in  an  equal,  nay,  in  a 
greater  degree  in  brutes;  it  is  his  preponderating  amount 
of  sensibility  which  distinguishes  man  from  other  animals. 
Now,  our  mental  powers  are  forms  of  sensibility,  and 
therefore  a  preponderating  amount  of  it  makes  us  capable 
of  that  kind  of  pleasure  which  has  to  do  with  mind,  so- 
called  intellectual  pleasure;  and  the  more  sensibility  pre¬ 
dominates,  the  greater  the  pleasure  will  be.* 

The  normal,  ordinary  man  takes  a  vivid  interest  in 
anything  only  in  so  far  as  it  excites  his  will,  that  is  to 
say,  is  a  matter  of  personal  interest  to  him.  But  constant 
excitement  of  the  will  is  never  an  unmixed  good,  to  say 
the  least;  in  other  words,  it  involves  pain.  Card-playing, 

*  Nature  exhibits  a  continual  progress,  starting  from  the  mechanical 
and  chemical  activity  of  the  inorganic  world,  proceeding  to  the  vege¬ 
table,  with  its  dull  enjoyment  of  self,  from  that  to  the  animal  world, 
where  intelligence  and  consciousness  begin,  at  first  very  weak,  and 
only  after  many  intermediate  stages  attaining  its  last  great  develop¬ 
ment  in  man,  whose  intellect  is  Nature’s  crowning  point,  the  goal  of 
all  her  efforts,  the  most  perfect  and  difficult  of  all  her  works.  And 
even  within  the  range  of  the  human  intellect,  there  are  a  great  many 
observable  differences  of  degree,  and  it  is  very  seldom  that  intellect 
reaches  its  highest  point,  intelligence  properly  so-called,  which  in  this 
narrow  and  strict  sense  of  the  word,  is  Nature’s  most  consummate 
product,  and  so  the  rarest  and  most  precious  thing  of  which  the  world 
can  boast.  The  highest  product  of  Nature  is  the  clearest  degree  of 
consciousness  in  which  the  world  mirrors  itself  more  plainly  and  com¬ 
pletely  than  anywhere  else.  A  man  endowed  with  this  form  of  in¬ 
telligence  is  in  possession  of  what  is  noblest  and  best  on  earth;  and 
accordingly,  he  has  a  source  of  pleasure  in  comparison  with  which  all 
others  are  small.  From  his  surroundings  he  asks  nothing  but  leisure 
for  the  free  enjoyment  of  what  he  has  got,  time,  as  it  were,  to  polish 
his  diamond.  All  other  pleasures  that  are  not  of  the  intellect  are  of 
a  lower  kind ;  for  they  are,  one  and  all,  movements  of  will  —  desires, 
hopes,  fears  and  ambitions,  no  matter  to  what  directed:  they  are  al¬ 
ways  satisfied  at  the  cost  of  pain,  and  in  the  case  of  ambition,  gen¬ 
erally  with  more  or  less  of  illusion.  With  intellectual  pleasure,  on 
the  other  hand,  truth  becomes  clearer  and  clearer.  In  the  realm  of 
intelligence  pain  has  no  power.  Knowledge  is  all  in  all.  Further, 
intellectual  pleasures  are  accessible  entirely  and  only  through  the 
medium  of  the  intelligence,  and  are  limited  by  its  capacity.  For  all 

THE  WIT  THERE  IS  IN  THE  WORLD  IS  USELESS  TO  HIM  WHO  HAS  NONE. 

Still  this  advantage  is  accompanied  by  a  substantial  disadvantage; 
for  the  whole  of  Nature  shows  that  with  the  growth  of  intelligence 
comes  increased  capacity  for  pain,  and  it  is  only  with  the  highest 
degree  of  intelligence  that  suffering  reaches  its  supreme  point. 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


27 


that  universal  occupation  of  <(  good  society  ®  everywhere 
is  a  device  for  providing  this  kind  of  excitement,  and 

that,  too,  by  means  of  interests  so  small  as  to  produce 
slight  and  momentary,  instead  of  real  and  permanent, 

pain.  Card-playing  is,  in  fact,  a  mere  tickling  of  the 

will.* 

On  the  other  hand,  a  man  of  powerful  intellect  is 

capable  of  taking  a  vivid  interest  in  things  in  the  way  of 
mere  knowledge,  with  no  admixture  of  will;  nay,  such 
an  interest  is  a  necessity  to  him.  It  places  him  in  a 
sphere  where  pain  is  an  alien,  a  diviner  air  where  the 
gods  live  serene  : 

dzo\  p‘eia  Zwovtss. 

Look  on  these  two  pictures  —  the  life  of  the  masses, 
one  long,  dull  record  of  struggle  and  effort  entirely  de¬ 
voted  to  the  petty  interests  of  personal  welfare,  to  misery 
in  all  its  forms,  a  life  beset  by  intolerable  boredom  as 
soon  as  ever  those  aims  are  satisfied  and  the  man  is 
thrown  back  upon  himself,  whence  he  can  be  roused 
again  to  some  sort  of  movement  only  by  the  wild  fire  of 
passion.  On  the  other  side  you  have  a  man  endowed 
with  a  high  degree  of  mental  power,  leading  an  existence 
rich  in  thought  and  full  of  life  and  meaning,  occupied  by 

*  Vulgarity  is,  at  bottom,  the  kind  of  consciousness  in  which  the 
will  completely  predominates  over  the  intellect,  where  the  latter  does 
nothing  more  than  perform  the  service  of  its  master,  the  will.  There¬ 
fore,  when  the  will  makes  no  demands,  supplies  no  motives,  strong  or 
weak,  the  intellect  entirely  loses  its  power,  and  the  result  is  complete 
vacancy  of  mind.  Now  will  without  intellect  is  the  most  vulgar  and 
common  thing  in  the  world,  possessed  by  every  blockhead,  who,  in  the 
gratification  of  his  passions,  shows  the  stuff  of  which  he  is  made.  This 
is  the  condition  of  mind  called  vulgarity,  in  which  the  only  active 
elements  are  the  organs  of  sense,  and  that  small  amount  of  intellect 
which  is  necessary  for  apprehending  the  data  of  sense.  Accordingly, 
the  vulgar  man  is  constantly  open  to  all  sorts  of  impressions,  and 
immediately  perceives  all  the  little  trifling  things  that  go  on  in  his 
environment:  the  lightest  whisper,  the  most  trivial  circumstance,  is  suf¬ 
ficient  to  rouse  his  attention ;  he  is  just  like  an  animal.  Such  a  man’s 
mental  condition  reveals  itself  in  his  face,  in  his  whole  exterior;  and 
hence  that  vulgar,  repulsive  appearance,  which  is  all  the  more  offensive, 
if,  as  is  usually  the  case,  his  will  —  the  only  factor  in  his  consciousness 
—  is  a  base,  selfish  and  altogether  bad  one. 


28 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


worthy  and  interesting  objects  as  soon  as  ever  he  is  free 
to  give  himself  to  them,  bearing  in  himself  a  source  of 
the  noblest  pleasure.  What  external  promptings  he  wants 
come  from  the  works  of  nature,  and  from  the  contempla¬ 
tion  of  human  affairs  and  the  achievements  of  the  great 
of  all  ages  and  countries,  which  are  thoroughly  appreciated 
by  a  man  of  this  type  alone,  as  being  the  only  one  who 
can  quite  understand  and  feel  with  them.  And  so  it  is 
for  him  alone  that  those  great  ones  have  really  lived;  it 
is  to  him  that  they  make  their  appeal;  the  rest  are  but 
casual  hearers  who  only  half  understand  either  them  or 
their  followers.  Of  course,  this  characteristic  of  the  intel¬ 
lectual  man  implies  that  he  has  one  more  need  than  the 
others,  the  need  of  reading,  observing,  studying,  meditat¬ 
ing,  practicing,  the  need,  in  short,  of  undisturbed  leisure. 
For,  as  Voltaire  has  very  rightly  said,  there  are  no  real 
pleasures  without  real  needs;  and  the  need  of  them  is 
why  to  such  a  man  pleasures  are  accessible  which  are 
denied  to  others,  the  varied  beauties  of  nature  and  art 
and  literature.  To  heap  these  round  people  who  do  not 
want  them  and  cannot  appreciate  them,  is  like  expecting 
gray  hairs  to  fall  in  love.  A  man  who  is  privileged  in 
this  respect  leads  two  lives,  a  personal  and  an  intellectual, 
life;  and  the  latter  gradually  comes  to  be  looked  upon  as 
the  true  one,  and  the  former  as  merely  a  means  to  it. 
Other  people  make  this  shallow,  empty  and  troubled  exist¬ 
ence  an  end  in  itself.  To  the  life  of  the  intellect  such  a 
man  will  give  the  preference  over  all  his  other  occupa¬ 
tions:  by  the  constant  growth  of  insight  and  knowledge, 
this  intellectual  life,  like  a  slowly-forming  work  of  art, 
will  acquire  a  consistency,  a  permanent  intensity,  a  unity 
which  becomes  ever  more  and  more  complete;  compared 
with  which,  a  life  devoted  to  the  attainment  of  personal 
comfort,  a  life  that  may  broaden  indeed,  but  can  never 
be  deepened,  makes  but  a  poor  show:  and  yet,  as  I  have 
said,  people  make  this  baser  sort  of  existence  an  end  in 
itself. 

The  ordinary  life  of  every  day,  so  far  as  it  is  not 
moved  by  passion,  is  tedious  and  insipid;  and  if  it  is  so 
moved,  it  soon  becomes  painful.  Those  alone  are  happy 
whom  nature  has  favored  with  some  superfluity  of  intel- 


BOSTON  COUB*  L»£» 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS  29 

lect,  something  beyond  what  is  just  necessary  to  carry  out 
the  behests  of  their  will;  for  it  enables  them  to  lead  an 
intellectual  life  as  well,  a  life  unattended  by  pain  and  full 
of  vivid  interests.  Mere  leisure,  that  is  to  say,  intellect 
unoccupied  in  the  service  of  the  will,  is  not  of  itself  suf¬ 
ficient  :  there  must  be  a  real  superfluity  of  power,  set  free 
from  the  service  of  the  will  and  devoted  to  that  of  the 
intellect;  for,  as  Seneca  says,  otium  sine  litteris  mors  est 
e t  vivi  hominis  sepultura  —  illiterate  leisure  is  a  form  of 
death,  a  living  tomb.  Varying  with  the  amount  of  the 
superfluity,  there  will  be  countless  developments  in  this 
second  life,  the  life  of  the  mind;  it  may  be  the  mere  col¬ 
lection  and  labelling  of  insects,  birds,  minerals,  coins,  or 
the  highest  achievements  of  poetry  and  philosophy.  The 
life  of  the  mind  is  not  only  a  protection  against  bore¬ 
dom,  it  also  wards  off  the  pernicious  effects  of  boredom; 
it  keeps  us  from  bad  company,  from  the  many  dangers,  mis¬ 
fortunes,  losses  and  extravagances  which  the  man  who 
places  his  happiness  entirely  in  the  objective  world  is  sure 
to  encounter.  My  philosophy,  for  instance,  has  never 
brought  me  in  a  sixpence ;  but  it  has  spared  me  many  an 
expense. 

The  ordinary  man  places  his  life’s  happiness  in  things 
external  to  him,  in  property,  rank,  wife  and  children, 
friends,  society,  and  the  like,  so  that  when  he  loses  them 
or  finds  them  disappointing,  the  foundation  of  his  happi¬ 
ness  is  destroyed.  In  other  words,  the  centre  of  gravity 
is  not  in  himself ;  it  is  constantly  changing  its  place,  with 
every  wish  and  whim.  If  he  is  a  man  of  means,  one 
day  it  will  be  his  house  in  the  country,  another  buying 
horses,  or  entertaining  friends,  or  traveling,  a  life,  in 
short,  of  general  luxury,  the  reason  being  that  he  seeks 
his  pleasure  in  things  outside  him.  Like  one  whose 
health  and  strength  are  gone,  he  tries  to  regain  by  the 
use  of  jellies  and  drugs,  instead  of  by  developing  his 
own  vital  power,  the  true  source  of  what  he  has  lost. 
Before  proceeding  to  the  opposite,  let  us  compare  with 
this  common  type  the  man  who  comes  midway  between 
the  two,  endowed,  it  may  be,  not  exactly  with  distin¬ 
guished  powers  of  mind,  but  with  somewhat  more  than 
the  ordinary  amount  of  intellect.  He  will  take  a  dilet- 


3° 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


tante  interest  in  art,  or  devote  his  attention  to  some 
branch  of  science — botany,  for  example,  or  physics,  as¬ 
tronomy,  history,  and  find  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  in 
such  studies,  and  amuse  himself  with  them  when  exter¬ 
nal  sources  of  happiness  are  exhausted  or  fail  to  satisfy 
him  any  more.  Of  a  man  like  this  it  may  be  said  that 
his  centre  of  gravity  is  partly  in  himself.  But  a  dilet¬ 
tante  interest  in  art  is  a  very  different  thing  from  creat¬ 
ive  activity;  and  an  amateur  pursuit  of  science  is  apt  to 
be  superficial  and  not  to  penetrate  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter.  A  man  cannot  entirely  identify  himself  with 
such  pursuits,  or  have  his  whole  existence  so  completely 
filled  and  permeated  with  them  that  he  loses  all  interest 
in  everything  else.  It  is  only  the  highest  intellectual 
power,  what  we  call  genius,  that  attains  to  this  degree  of 
intensity,  making  all  time  and  existence  its  theme,  and 
striving  to  express  its  peculiar  conception  of  the  world, 
whether  it  contemplates  life  as  the  subject  of  poetry  or 
of  philosophy.  Hence,  undisturbed  occupation  with  him¬ 
self,  his  own  thoughts  and  works,  is  a  matter  of  urgent 
necessity  to  such  a  man;  solitude  is  welcome,  leisure  is 
the  highest  good,  and  everything  else  is  unnecessary, 
nay,  even  burdensome. 

This  is  the  only  type  of  man  of  whom  it  can  be  said 
that  his  centre  of  gravity  is  entirely  in  himself;  which 
explains  why  it  is  that  people  of  this  sort  —  and  they  are 
very  rare  —  no  matter  how  excellent  their  character  may 
be,  do  not  show  that  warm  and  unlimited  interest  in 
friends,  family,  and  the  community  in  general,  of  which 
others  are  so  often  capable;  for  if  they  have  only  them¬ 
selves  they  are  not  inconsolable  for  the  loss  of  everything 
else.  This  gives  an  isolation  to  their  character,  which 
is  all  the  more  effective  since  other  people  never  really 
quite  satisfy  them,  as  being,  on  the  whole,  of  a  different 
nature;  nay  more,  since  this  difference  is  constantly  forc¬ 
ing  itself  upon  their  notice,  they  get  accustomed  to  move 
about  among  mankind  as  alien  beings,  and  in  thinking  of 
humanity  in  general,  to  say  they  instead  of  we. 

So  the  conclusion  we  come  to  is  that  the  man  whom 
nature  has  endowed  with  intellectual  wealth  is  the  happi¬ 
est;  so  true  it  is  that  the  subjective  concerns  us  more 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


3i 


than  the  objective;  for  whatever  the  latter  may  be,  it 
can  work  only  indirectly,  secondarily,  and  through  the 
medium  of  the  former  —  a  truth  finely  expressed  by 
Lucian :  — 

nXouToz  6  Trj<s  (pu/rjs  ttXoutos  /iovos  itruv  aArjOrji? 

TakXa  8'  tyei  arrjv  TiXeiova  twv  uredviuv. 

—  the  wealth  of  the  soul  is  the  only  true  wealth,  for  with 
all  other  riches  comes  a  bane  even  greater  than  they. 
The  man  of  inner  wealth  wants  nothing  from  outside  but 
the  negative  gift  of  undisturbed  leisure,  to  develop  and 
mature  his  intellectual  faculties,  that  is,  to  enjoy  his 
wealth;  in  short,  he  wants  permission  to  be  himself,  his 
whole  life  long,  every  day  and  every  hour.  If  he  is  des¬ 
tined  to  impress  the  character  of  his  mind  upon  a  whole 
race,  he  has  only  one  measure  of  happiness  or  unhappi¬ 
ness —  to  succeed  or  fail  in  perfecting  his  powers  and 
completing  his  work.  All  else  is  of  small  consequence. 
Accordingly,  the  greatest  minds  of  all  ages  have  set  the 
highest  value  upon  undisturbed  leisure,  as  worth  exactly 
as  much  as  the  man  himself.  Happiness  appears  to  con¬ 
sist  in  leisure,  says  Aristotle;  and  Diogenes  Laertius  re¬ 
ports  that  Socrates  praised  leisure  as  the  fairest  of 
all  possessions.  So,  in  the  <(  Nichomachean  Ethics, w 
Aristotle  concludes  that  a  life  devoted  to  philosophy  is 
the  happiest;  or,  as  he  says  in  the  <(  Politics, n  the  free 

EXERCISE  OF  ANY  POWER,  WHATEVER  IT  MAY  BE,  IS  HAPPI¬ 
NESS.  This,  again,  tallies  with  what  Goethe  says  in 
<(  Wilhelm  Meister:®  The  man  who  is  born  with  a  talent 

WHICH  HE  IS  MEANT  TO  USE,  FINDS  HIS  GREATEST  HAPPINESS 
IN  USING  IT. 

But  to  be  in  possession  of  undisturbed  leisure  is  far 
from  being  the  common  lot;  nay,  it  is  something  alien  to 
human  nature,  for  the  ordinary  man’s  destiny  is  to  spend 
life  in  procuring  what  is  necessary  for  the  subsistence  of 
himself  and  his  family;  he  is  a  son  of  struggle  and  need, 
not  a  free  intelligence.  So  people  as  a  rule  soon  get 
tired  of  undisturbed  leisure,  and  it  becomes  burdensome 
if  there  are  no  fictitious  and  forced  aims  to  occupy  it, 
play,  pastime  and  hobbies  of  every  kind.  For  this  very 
reason  it  is  full  of  possible  danger,  and  difficilis  in  otio 
quies  is  a  true  saying, —  it  is  difficult  to  keep  quiet  if  you 


32 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


have  nothing  to  do.  On  the  other  hand,  a  measure  of  in¬ 
tellect  far  surpassing  the  ordinary  is  as  unnatural  as  it  is 
abnormal.  But  if  it  exists,  and  the  man  endowed  with  it 
is  to  be  happy,  he  will  want  precisely  that  undisturbed 
leisure  which  the  others  find  burdensome  or  pernicious; 
for  without  it  he  is  a  Pegasus  in  harness,  and  consequently 
unhappy.  If  these  two  unnatural  circumstances,  external 
and  internal,  undisturbed  leisure  and  great  intellect,  hap¬ 
pen  to  coincide  in  the  same  person,  it  is  a  great  piece  of 
fortune;  and  if  fate  is  so  far  favorable,  a  man  can  lead 
the  higher  life,  the  life  protected  from  the  two  opposite 
sources  of  human  suffering,  pain  and  boredom,  from  the 
painful  struggle  for  existence,  and  the  incapacity  for  en, 
during  leisure  (which  is  free  existence  itself) — evils  which 
may  be  escaped  only  by  being  mutually  neutralized. 

But  there  is  something  to  be  said  in  opposition  to 
this  view.  Great  intellectual  gifts  mean  an  activity  pre¬ 
eminently  nervous  in  its  character,  and  consequently  a 
very  high  degree  of  susceptibility  to  pain  in  every  form. 
Further,  such  gifts  imply  an  intense  temperament,  larger 
and  more  vivid  ideas,  which,  as  the  inseparable  accom¬ 
paniment  of  great  intellectual  power,  entail  on  its  pos¬ 
sessor  a  corresponding  intensity  of  the  emotions,  making 
them  incomparably  more  violent  than  those  to  which  the 
ordinary  man  is  a  prey.  Now,  there  are  more  things  in  the 
world  productive  of  pain  than  of  pleasure.  Again,  a  large 
endowment  of  intellect  tends  to  estrange  the  man  who 
has  it  from  other  people  and  their  doings;  for  the  more 
a  man  has  in  himself,  the  less  he  will  be  able  to  find  in 
them ;  and  the  hundred  things  in  which  they  take  delight, 
he  will  think  shallow  and  insipid.  Here,  then,  perhaps, 
is  another  instance  of  that  law  of  compensation  which 
makes  itself  felt  everywhere.  How  often  one  hears  it 
said,  and  said,  too,  with  some  plausibility,  that  the  narrow¬ 
minded  man  is  at  bottom  the  happiest,  even  though  his 
fortune  is  unenviable.  I  shall  make  no  attempt  to  fore¬ 
stall  the  reader’s  own  judgment  on  this  point;  more  es¬ 
pecially  as  Sophocles  himself  has  given  utterance  to  two 
diametrically  opposite  opinions: 

IloXXoj  to  <ppove?v  eudatpovias 

npuirov  U7tdp%et, 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


33 


he  says  in  one  place  —  wisdom  is  the  greatest  part  of 
happiness;  and  again  in  another  passage,  he  declares  that 
the  life  of  the  thoughtless  is  the  most  pleasant  of  all  — 

'Em  t a  (j>puv£iv  yap  p.7]8£v  rjdiffTos  ftws. 

The  philosophers  of  the  Old  Testament  find  themselves  in 
a  like  contradiction. 

The  life  of  a  fool  is  worse  than  death. 

And  — 

In  much  wisdom  is  much  grief; 

And  he  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow. 

I  may  remark,  however,  that  a  man  who  has  no  mental 
needs,  because  his  intellect  is  of  the  narrow  and  normal 
amount,  is,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  what  is  called 
a  philistine  —  an  expression  at  first  peculiar  to  the  Ger¬ 
man  language,  a  kind  of  slang  term  at  the  universities, 
afterward  used,  by  analogy,  in  a  higher  sense,  though 
still  in  its  original  meaning,  as  denoting  one  who  is  not 
a  Son  of  the  Muses.  A  philistine  is  and  remains  ap.ou<ro<} 
avTjp.  I  should  prefer  to  take  a  higher  point  of  view,  and 
apply  the  term  philistine  to  people  who  are  always  seri¬ 
ously  occupied  with  realities  which  are  no  realities;  but 
as  such  a  definition  would  be  a  transcendental  one,  and 
therefore  not  generally  intelligible,  it  would  hardly  be  in 
place  in  the  present  treatise,  which  aims  at  being  popu¬ 
lar.  The  other  definition  can  be  more  easily  elucidated, 
indicating,  as  it  does,  satisfactorily  enough,  the  essential 
nature  of  all  those  qualities  which  distinguish  the  philis¬ 
tine.  He  is  defined  to  be  a  man  without  mental  needs. 
From  this  it  follows,  firstly,  in  relation  to  himself,  that 
he  has  no  intellectual  pleasures;  for,  as  was  remarked 
before,  there  are  no  real  pleasures  without  real  needs. 
The  philistine’s  life  is  animated  by  no  desire  to  gain 
knowledge  and  insight  for  their  own  sake,  or  to  experi¬ 
ence  that  true  aesthetic  pleasure  which  is  so  nearly  akin 
to  them.  If  pleasures  of  this  kind  are  fashionable,  and 
the  philistine  finds  himself  compelled  to  pay  attention  to 
them,  he  will  force  himself  to  do  so,  but  he  will  take  as 
little  interest  in  them  as  possible.  His  only  real  pleas¬ 
ures  are  of  a  sensual  kind,  and  he  thinks  that  these  in- 


34 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


demnify  him  for  the  loss  of  the  others.  To  him  oysters 
and  champagne  are  the  height  of  existence;  the  aim  of 
his  life  is  to  procure  what  will  contribute  to  his  bodily 
welfare,  and  he  is  indeed  in  a  happy  way  if  this  causes 
him  some  trouble.  If  the  luxuries  of  life  are  heaped 
upon  him,  he  will  inevitably  be  bored,  and  against  bore¬ 
dom  he  has  a  great  many  fancied  remedies,  balls,  theatres, 
parties,  cards,  gambling,  horses,  women,  drinking,  travel¬ 
ing  and  so  on;  all  of  which  cannot  protect  a  man  from 
being  bored,  for  where  there  are  no  intellectual  needs,  no 
intellectual  pleasures  are  possible.  The  peculiar  charac¬ 
teristic  of  the  philistine  is  a  dull,  dry  kind  of  gravity, 
akin  to  that  of  animals.  Nothing  really  pleases,  or  ex¬ 
cites,  or  interests  him,  for  sensual  pleasure  is  quickly 
exhausted,  and  the  society  of  philistines  soon  becomes 
burdensome,  and  one  may  even  get  tired  of  playing  cards. 
True,  the  pleasures  of  vanity  are  left,  pleasures  which  he 
enjoys  in  his  own  way,  either  by  feeling  himself  superior 
in  point  of  wealth,  or  rank,  or  influence  and  power  to 
other  people,  who  thereupon  pay  him  honor;  or,  at  any 
rate,  by  going  about  with  those  who  have  a  superfluity  of 
these  blessings,  sunning  himself  in  the  reflection  of  their 
splendor  —  what  the  English  call  a  snob. 

From  the  essential  nature  of  the  philistine  it  follows, 
secondly,  in  regard  to  others,  that,  as  he  possesses  no 
intellectual,  but  only  physical  needs,  he  will  seek  the 
society  of  those  who  can  satisfy  the  latter,  but  not  the 
former.  The  last  thing  he  will  expect  from  his  friends  is 
the  possession  of  any  sort  of  intellectual  capacity;  nay,  if 
he  chances  to  meet  with  it,  it  will  rouse  his  antipathy  and 
even  hatred;  simply  because  in  addition  to  an  unpleasant 
sense  of  inferiority,  he  experiences,  in  his  heart,  a  dull 
kind  of  envy,  which  has  to  be  carefully  concealed  even 
from  himself.  Nevertheless,  it  sometimes  grows  into  a 
secret  feeling  of  rancor.  But  for  all  that,  it  will  never 
occur  to  him  to  make  his  own  ideas  of  worth  or  value 
conform  to  the  standard  of  such  qualities ;  he  will  continue 
to  give  the  preference  to  rank  and  riches,  power  and 
influence,  which  in  his  eyes  seem  to  be  the  only  genuine 
advantages  in  the  world;  and  his  wish  will  be  to  excel  in 
them  himself.  All  this  is  the  consequence  of  his  being 


PERSONALITY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  IS 


35 


a  man  without  intellectual  needs.  The  great  affliction 
of  all  philistines  is  that  they  have  no  interest  in  ideas, 
and  that,  to  escape  being  bored,  they  are  in  constant  need 
of  realities.  Now  realities  are  either  unsatisfactory  or 
dangerous;  when  they  lose  their  interest,  they  become 
fatiguing.  But  the  ideal  world  is  illimitable  and  calm, 

something  afar 
From  the  sphere  of  our  sorrow. 

Note. —  In  these  remarks  on  the  personal  qualities 
which  go  to  make  happiness,  I  have  been  mainly  con¬ 
cerned  with  the  physical  and  intellectual  nature  of  man. 
For  an  account  of  the  direct  and  immediate  influence  of 
morality  upon  happiness,  let  me  refer  to  my  prize  essay 
on  <(  The  Foundation  of  Morals”  (Sec.  22.) 


CHAPTER  III. 


Property,  or  What  a  Man  Has. 

Epicurus  divides  the  needs  of  mankind  into  three  classes, 
and  the  division  made  by  this  great  professor  of  happi¬ 
ness  is  a  true  and  a  fine  one.  First  come  natural  and 
necessary  needs,  such  as,  when  not  satisfied,  produce  pain, 
—  food  and  clothing,  victus  et  avtictus,  needs  which  can 
easily  be  satisfied.  Secondly,  there  are  those  needs  which, 
though  natural,  are  not  necessary,  such  as  the  gratification 
of  certain  of  the  senses.  I  may  add,  however,  that  in  the 
report  given  by  Diogenes  Laertius,  Epicurus  does  not 
mention  which  of  the  senses  he  means;  so  that  on  this 
point  my  account  of  his  doctrine  is  somewhat  more  definite 
and  exact  than  the  original.  These  are  needs  rather  more 
difficult  to  satisfy.  The  third  class  consists  of  needs  which 
are  neither  natural  nor  necessary,  the  need  of  luxury  and 
prodigality,  show  and  splendor,  which  never  come  to  an 
end,  and  are  very  hard  to  satisfy. 

It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  define  the  limits 
which  reason  should  impose  on  the  desire  for  wealth;  for 
there  is  no  absolute  or  definite  amount  of  wealth  which 
will  satisfy  a  man.  The  amount  is  always  relative,  that 
is  to  say,  just  so  much  as  will  maintain  the  proportion 
between  what  he  wants  and  what  he  gets;  for  to  measure 
a  man’s  happiness  only  by  what  he  gets,  and  not  also  by 
what  he  expects  to  get,  is  as  futile  as  to  try  to  express 
a  fraction  which  shall  have  a  numerator  but  no  denomi¬ 
nator.  A  man  never  feels  the  loss  of  things  which  it 
never  occurs  to  him  to  ask  for;  he  is  just  as  happy  with¬ 
out  them;  while  another,  who  may  have  a  hundred  times 
as  much,  feels  miserable  because  he  has  not  got  the  one 
thing  which  he  wants.  In  fact,  here  too,  eve^  man  has 
an  horizon  of  his  own,  and  he  will  expect  just  as  much 
as  he  thinks  it  possible  for  him  to  get.  If  an  object 
within  his  horizon  looks  as  though  he  could  confidently 
reckon  on  getting  it,  he  is  happy;  but  if  difficulties  come 
(36) 


PROPERTY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  HAS 


37 


in  the  way,  he  is  miserable.  What  lies  beyond  his  horizon 
has  no  effect  at  all  upon  him.  So  it  is  that  the  vast 
possessions  of  the  rich  do  not  agitate  the  poor,  and  con¬ 
versely,  that  a  wealthy  man  is  not  consoled  by  all  his 
wealth  for  the  failure  of  his  hopes.  Riches,  one  may  say, 
are  like  sea- water :  the  more  you  drink,  the  more  thirsty  you 
become ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  fame.  The  loss  of  wealth 
and  prosperity  leaves  a  man,  as  soon  as  the  first  pangs  of 
grief  are  over,  in  very  much  the  same  habitual  temper  as 
before;  and  the  reason  of  this  is,  that  as  soon  as  fate 
diminishes  the  amount  of  his  possessions,  he  himself  im¬ 
mediately  reduces  the  amount  of  his  claims.  But  when 
misfortune  comes  upon  us,  to  reduce  the  amount  of  our 
claims  is  just  what  is  most  painful;  when  once  we  have 
done  so,  the  pain  becomes  less  and  less,  and  is  felt  no 
more;  like  an  old  wound  which  has  healed.  Conversely, 
when  a  piece  of  good  fortune  befalls  us,  our  claims  mount 
higher  and  higher,  as  there  is  nothing  to  regulate  them. 
It  is  in  this  feeling  of  expansion  that  the  delight  of  it  lies. 
But  it  lasts  no  longer  than  the  process  itself,  and  when 
the  expansion  is  complete,  the  delight  ceases:  we  have 
become  accustomed  to  the  increase  in  our  claims,  and 
consequently  indifferent  to  the  amount  of  wealth  which 
satisfies  them.  There  is  a  passage  in  the  <(  Odyssey w 
illustrating  this  truth,  of  which  I  may  quote  the  last  two 
lines : 

7o?09  yap  voo?  iar'iv  tTzc^Oovtajv  avOpwxwv 

OTov  £(f>  T),uap  ayei  Tzarrjp  avdpuiv  re  dtwv  re. 

—  the  thoughts  of  man  that  dwells  on  the  earth  are  as 
the  day  granted  him  by  the  father  of  gods  and  men. 
Discontent  springs  from  a  constant  endeavor  to  increase 
the  amount  of  our  claims,  when  we  are  powerless  to  in¬ 
crease  the  amount  which  will  satisfy  them. 

When  we  consider  how  full  of  needs  the  human  race 
is,  how  its  whole  existence  is  based  upon  them,  it  is  not 
a  matter  for  surprise  that  wealth  is  held  in  more  sin¬ 
cere  esteem,  nay,  in  greater  honor,  than  anything  else  in 
the  world;  nor  ought  we  to  wonder  that  gain  is  made  the 
only  goal  of  life,  and  everything  that  does  not  lead  to  it 
pushed  aside  or  thrown  overboard  —  philosophy,  for  in- 


38 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


stance,  by  those  who  profess  it.  People  are  often  re¬ 
proached  for  wishing  for  money  above  all  things,  and  for 
loving  it  more  than  anything  else;  but  it  is  natural  and 
even  inevitable  for  people  to  love  that  which,  like  an  un¬ 
wearied  Proteus,  is  always  ready  to  turn  itself  into  what¬ 
ever  object  their  wandering  wishes  or  manifold  desires 
may  for  the  moment  fix  upon.  Everything  else  can  sat¬ 
isfy  only  one  wish,  one  need:  food  is  good  only  if  you 
are  hungry;  wine,  if  you  are  able  to  enjoy  it;  drugs,  if 
you  are  sick;  fur  for  the  winter;  love  for  youth,  and  so 
on.  These  are  all  only  relatively  good,  ayada  xpo?  rt 

Money  alone  is  absolutely  good,  because  it  is  not  only  a 

concrete  satisfaction  of  one  need  in  particular;  it  is  an 
abstract  satisfaction  of  all. 

If  a  man  has  an  independent  fortune,  he  should  re¬ 
gard  it  as  a  bulwark  against  the  many  evils  and  mis¬ 
fortunes  which  he  may  encounter;  he  should  not  look 
upon  it  as  giving  him  leave  to  get  what  pleasure  he  can 
out  of  the  world,  or  as  rendering  it  incumbent  upon 
him  to  spend  it  in  this  way.  People  who  are  not  bom 
with  a  fortune,  but  end  by  making  a  large  one  through 
the  exercise  of  whatever  talents  they  possess,  almost 

always  come  to  think  that  their  talents  are  their  capital, 

and  that  the  money  they  have  gained  is  merely  the 
interest  upon  it;  they  do  not  lay  by  a  part  of  their  earn¬ 
ings  to  form  permanent  capital,  but  spend  their  money 
much  as  they  have  earned  it.  Accordingly,  they  often 
fall  into  poverty;  their  earnings  decrease,  or  come  to  an 
end  altogether,  either  because  their  talent  is  exhausted 
by  becoming  antiquated,  as,  for  instance,  very  often  hap¬ 
pens  in  the  case  of  fine  art  —  or  else  it  was  valid  only 
under  a  special  conjunction  of  circumstances  which  has 
now  passed  away.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  those 
who  live  on  the  common  labor  of  their  hands  from  treat¬ 
ing  their  earnings  in  that  way  if  they  like;  because  their 
kind  of  skill  is  not  likely  to  disappear,  or,  if  it  does,  it 
can  be  replaced  by  that  of  their  fellow-workmen ;  more¬ 
over,  the  kind  of  work  they  do  is  always  in  demand;  so 
that  what  the  proverb  says  is  quite  true,  a  useful  trade 
is  a  mine  of  gold.  But  with  artists  and  professionals  of 
every  kind  the  case  is  quite  different,  and  that  is  the 


PROPERTY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  HAS 


39 


reason  why  they  are  well  paid.  They  ought  to  build  up 
a  capital  out  of  their  earnings;  but  they  recklessly  look 
upon  them  as  merely  interest,  and  end  in  ruin.  On  the 
other  hand,  people  who  inherit  money  know,  at  least, 
how  to  distinguish  between  capital  and  interest,  and  most 
of  them  try  to  make  their  capital  secure  and  not  en¬ 
croach  upon  it;  nay,  if  they  can,  they  put  by  at  least 
an  eighth  of  their  interest  in  order  to  meet  future  con¬ 
tingencies.  So  most  of  them  maintain  their  position. 
These  few  remarks  about  capital  and  interest  are  not 
applicable  to  commercial  life,  for  merchants  look  upon 
money  only  as  a  means  of  further  gain,  just  as  a  workman 
regards  his  tools;  so  even  if  their  capital  has  been  entirely 
the  result  of  their  own  efforts,  they  try  to  preserve  and 
increase  it  by  using  it.  Accordingly,  wealth  is  nowhere 
so  much  at  home  as  in  the  merchant  class. 

It  will  generally  be  found  that  those  who  know  what  it 
is  to  have  been  in  need  and  destitution  are  very  much 
less  afraid  of  it,  and  consequently  more  inclined  to  ex¬ 
travagance,  than  those  who  know  poverty  only  by  hearsay. 
People  who  have  been  born  and  bred  in  good  circumstances 
are  as  a  rule  much  more  careful  about  the  future,  more 
economical,  in  fact,  than  those  who  by  a  piece  of  good 
luck,  have  suddenly  passed  from  poverty  to  wealth.  This 
looks  as  if  poverty  were  not  really  such  a  very  wretched 
thing  as  it  appears  from  a  distance.  The  true  reason,  how¬ 
ever,  is  rather  the  fact  that  the  man  who  has  been  born 
into  a  position  of  wealth  comes  to  look  upon  it  as  some¬ 
thing  without  which  he  could  no  more  live  than  he  could 
live  without  air;  he  guards  it  as  he  does  his  very  life;  and 
so  he  is  generally  a  lover  of  order,  prudent  and  economical. 
But  the  man  who  has  been  born  into  a  poor  position  looks 
upon  it  as  the  natural  one,  and  if  by  any  chance  he  comes 
in  for  a  fortune,  he  regards  it  as  a  superfluity,  something 
to  be  enjoyed  or  wasted,  because,  if  it  comes  to  an  end, 
he  can  get  on  just  as  well  as  before,  with  one  anxiety  the 
less;  or,  as  Shakespeare  says  in  Henry  VI., 

.  .  .  the  adage  must  be  verified 
That  beggars  mounted  run  their  horse  to  death. 

But  it  should  be  said  that  people  of  this  kind  have  a  firm 


40 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


and  excessive  trust,  partly  in  fate,  partly  in  the  peculiar 
means  which  have  already  raised  them  out  of  need  and 
poverty, —  a  trust  not  only  of  the  head,  but  of  the  heart 
also;  and  so  they  do  not,  like  the  man  born  rich,  look 
upon  the  shallows  of  poverty  as  bottomless,  but  console 
themselves  with  the  thought  that  when  they  have  touched 
ground  again,  they  can  take  another  upward  flight.  It  is 
this  trait  in  human  character  which  explains  the  fact  that 
women  who  were  poor  before  their  marriage  often  make 
greater  claims,  and  are  more  extravagant,  than  those  who 
have  brought  their  husbands  a  rich  dowry;  because  as  a 
rule,  rich  girls  bring  with  them,  not  only  a  fortune,  but 
also  more  eagerness,  nay,  more  of  the  inherited  instinct, 
to  preserve  it,  than  poor  girls  do.  If  anyone  doubts  the 
truth  of  this,  and  thinks  that  it  is  just  the  opposite,  he  will 
find  authority  for  his  view  in  Ariosto’s  first  Satire ;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  Dr.  Johnson  agrees  with  my  opinion.  A 

WOMAN  OF  FORTUNE,  he  SayS,  BEING  USED  TO  THE  HANDLING 
OF  MONEY,  SPENDS  IT  JUDICIOUSLY;  BUT  A  WOMAN  WHO  GETS 
THE  COMMAND  OF  MONEY  FOR  THE  FIRST  TIME  UPON  HER  MAR¬ 
RIAGE,  HAS  SUCH  A  GUSTO  IN  SPENDING  IT,  THAT  SHE  THROWS 
it  away  with  great  profusion.  And  in  any  case  let  me 
advise  anyone  who  marries  a  poor  girl  not  to  leave  her 
the  capital  but  only  the  interest,  and  to  take  especial  care 
that  she  has  not  the  management  of  the  children’s 
fortune. 

I  do  not  by  any  means  think  that  I  am  touching  upon 
a  subject  which  is  not  worth  my  while  to  mention  when 
I  recommend  people  to  be  careful  to  preserve  what  they 
have  earned  or  inherited.  For  to  start  life  with  just  as 
much  as  will  make  one  independent,  that  is,  allow  one 
to  live  comfortably  without  having  to  work  —  even  if  one 
has  only  just  enough  for  oneself,  not  to  speak  of  a  family 
—  is  an  advantage  which  cannot  be  overestimated;  for  it 
means  exemption  and  immunity  from  that  chronic  disease 
of  penury,  which  fastens  on  the  life  of  man  like  a  plague ; 
it  is  emancipation  from  that  forced  labor  which  is  the 
natural  lot  of  every  mortal.  Only  under  a  favorable  fate 
like  this  can  a  man  be  said  to  be  born  free,  to  be,  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  sui  juris ,  master  of  his 
own  time  and  powers,  and  able  to  say  every  morning, 


PROPERTY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  HAS 


4i 


this  day  is  my  own.  And  just  for  the  same  reason  the 
difference  between  the  man  who  has  a  hundred  a  year 
and  the  man  who  has  a  thousand,  is  infinitely  smaller 
than  the  difference  between  the  former  and  a  man  who 
has  nothing  at  all.  But  inherited  wealth  reaches  its  ut¬ 
most  value  when  it  falls  to  the  individual  endowed  with 
mental  powers  of  a  high  order,  who  is  resolved  to  pursue 
a  line  of  life  not  compatible  with  the  making  of  money; 
for  he  is  then  doubly  endowed  by  fate  and  can  live 
for  his  genius;  and  he  will  pay  his  debt  to  mankind 
a  hundred  times,  by  achieving  what  no  other  could 
achieve,  by  producing  some  work  which  contributes  to 
the  general  good,  and  redounds  to  the  honor  of  humanity 
at  large.  Another,  again,  may  use  his  wealth  to  further 
philanthropic  schemes,  and  make  himself  well-deserving 
of  his  fellow-men.  But  a  man  who  does  none  of  these 
things,  who  does  not  even  try  to  do  them,  who  never 
attempts  to  study  thoroughly  some  one  branch  of  knowl¬ 
edge  so  that  he  may  at  least  do  what  he  can  toward 
promoting  it  —  such  a  one,  born  as  he  is  into  riches,  is  a 
mere  idler  and  thief  of  time,  a  contemptible  fellow.  He 
will  not  even  be  happy,  because,  in  his  case,  exemption 
from  need  delivers  him  up  to  the  other  extreme  of  hu¬ 
man  suffering,  boredom,  which  is  such  martyrdom  to  him, 
that  he  would  have  been  better  off  if  poverty  had  given 
him  something  to  do.  And  as  he  is  bored  he  is  apt  to 
be  extravagant,  and  so  lose  the  advantage  of  which  he 
showed  himself  unworthy.  Countless  numbers  of  people 
find  themselves  in  want,  simply  because,  when  they  had 
money,  they  spent  it  only  to  get  momentary  relief  from 
the  feeling  of  boredom  which  oppressed  them. 

It  is  quite  another  matter  if  one’s  object  is  success  in 
political  life,  where  favor,  friends  and  connections  are  all- 
important,  in  order  to  mount  by  their  aid  step  by  step  on 
the  ladder  of  promotion,  and  perhaps  gain  the  topmost 
rung.  In  this  kind  of  life,  it  is  much  better  to  be  cast 
on  the  world  without  a  penny;  and  if  the  aspirant  is  not 
of  noble  family,  but  is  a  man  of  some  talent,  it  will  re¬ 
dound  to  his  advantage  to  be  an  absolute  pauper.  For 
what  every  one  most  aims  at  in  ordinary  contact  with  his 
fellows  is  to  prove  them  inferior  to  himself;  and  how 


42 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


much  more  is  this  the  case  in  politics.  Now,  it  is  only 
an  absolute  pauper  who  has  such  a  thorough  conviction 
of  his  own  complete,  profound  and  positive  inferiority 
from  every  point  of  view,  of  his  own  utter  insignificance 
and  worthlessness,  that  he  can  take  his  place  quietly  in 
the  political  machine.*  He  is  the  only  one  who  can  keep 
on  bowing  low  enough,  and  even  go  right  down  upon  his 
face  if  necessary;  he  alone  can  submit  to  everything  and 
laugh  at  it;  he  alone  knows  the  entire  worthlessness  of 
merit;  he  alone  uses  his  loudest  voice  and  his  boldest 
type  whenever  he  has  to  speak  or  write  of  those  who  are 
placed  over  his  head,  or  occupy  any  position  of  influence; 
and  if  they  do  a  little  scribbling,  he  is  ready  to  applaud 
it  as  a  masterwork.  He  alone  understands  how  to  beg, 
and  so  betimes,  when  he  is  hardly  out  of  his  boyhood,  he 
becomes  a  high  priest  of  that  hidden  mystery  which 
Goethe  brings  to  light ;  — 

Ueber’s  Niedertrachtige 

Niemand  sich  beklage: 

Denn  es  ist  das  Machtige 

Was  man  dir  auch  sage: 

—  it  is  no  use  to  complain  of  low  aims;  for,  whatever 
people  may  say,  they  rule  the  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  is  born  with  enough 
to  live  upon  is  generally  of  a  somewhat  independent  turn 
of  mind;  he  is  accustomed  to  keep  his  head  up;  he  has 
not  learned  all  the  arts  of  the  beggar;  perhaps  he  even 
presumes  a  little  upon  the  possession  of  talents  which,  as 
he  ought  to  know,  can  never  compete  with  cringing  me¬ 
diocrity,  in  the  long  run  he  comes  to  recognize  the  infe¬ 
riority  of  those  who  are  placed  over  his  head,  and  when 
they  try  to  put  insults  upon  him,  he  becomes  refractory 
and  shy.  This  is  not  the  way  to  get  on  in  the  world. 
Nay,  such  a  man  may  at  last  incline  to  the  opinion  freely 

*  Translator’s  Note.  —  Schopenhauer  is  probably  here  making  one 
of  his  many  virulent  attacks  upon  Hegel;  in  this  case  on  account  of 
what  he  thought  to  be  the  philosopher’s  abject  servility  to  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  his  day.  Though  the  Hegelian  system  has  been  the 
fruitful  mother  of  many  liberal  ideas,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Hegel’s  influence,  in  his  own  lifetime,  was  an  effective  support  of 
Prussian  bureaucracy. 


PROPERTY,  OR  WHAT  A  MAN  HAS 


43 


expressed  by  Voltaire:  We  have  only  two  days  to  live; 

IT  IS  NOT  WORTH  OUR  WHILE  TO  SPEND  THEM  IN  CRINGING 

to  contemptible  rascals.  But  alas !  let  me  observe  by 
the  way,  that  contemptible  rascal  is  an  attribute  which 
may  be  predicted  of  an  abominable  number  of  people. 
What  Juvenal  says  —  it  is  difficult  to  rise  if  your  poverty 
is  greater  than  your  talent  — 

Haud  facile  emergunt  quorum  virtutibus  obstat 
Res  angusta  domi  — 

is  more  applicable  to  a  career  of  art  and  literature  than 
to  political  and  social  ambition. 

Wife  and  children  I  have  not  reckoned  among  a  man’s 
possessions:  he  is  rather  in  their  possession.  It  would  be 
easier  to  include  friends  under  that  head;  but  a  man’s 
friends  belong  to  him  not  a  whit  more  than  he  belongs 
to  them. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


Position,  or  a  Man’s  Place  in  the  Estimation  of 

Others. 

SECTION  I. - REPUTATION. 

By  a  peculiar  weakness  of  human  nature,  people  gen¬ 
erally  think  too  much  about  the  opinion  which  others  form 
of  them;  although  the  slightest  reflection  will  show  that 
this  opinion,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  not  in  itself  essential 
to  happiness.  Therefore  it  is  hard  to  understand  why 
everybody  feels  so  very  pleased  when  he  sees  that  other 
people  have  a  good  opinion  of  him,  or  say  anything  flat¬ 
tering  to  his  vanity.  If  you  stroke  a  cat,  it  will  purr;  and, 
as  inevitably,  if  you  praise  a  man,  a  sweet  expression  of 
delight  will  appear  on  his  face;  and  even  though  the 
praise  is  a  palpable  lie,  it  will  be  welcome,  if  the  matter 
is  one  on  which  he  prides  himself.  If  only  other  people 
will  applaud  him,  a  man  may  console  himself  for  down¬ 
right  misfortune,  or  for  the  pittance  he  gets  from  the 
two  sources  of  human  happiness  already  discussed;  and 
conversely,  it  is  astonishing  how  infallibly  a  man  will  be 
annoyed,  and  in  some  cases  deeply  pained  by  any  wrong 
done  to  his  feeling  of  self-importance,  whatever  be  the 
nature,  degree,  or  circumstances  of  the  injury,  or  by  any 
depreciation,  slight,  or  disregard. 

If  the  feeling  of  honor  rests  upon  this  peculiarity  of 
human  nature,  it  may  have  a  very  salutary  effect  upon  the 
welfare  of  a  great  many  people,  as  a  substitute  for  moral¬ 
ity;  but  upon  their  happiness,  more  especially  upon  that 
peace  of  mind  and  independence  which  are  so  essential 
to  happiness,  its  effect  will  be  disturbing  and  prejudicial 
rather  than  salutary.  Therefore  it  is  advisable,  from  our 
point  of  view,  to  set  limits  to  this  weakness,  and  duly  to 
consider  and  rightly  to  estimate  the  relative  value  of  ad¬ 
vantages,  and  thus  temper,  as  far  as  possible,  this  great 
susceptibility  to  other  people’s  opinion,  whether  the  opin- 
(44) 


REPUTATION 


45 


ion  be  one  flattering  to  our  vanity,  or  whether  it  causes 
us  pain;  for  in  either  case  it  is  the  same  feeling  which 
is  touched.  Otherwise,  a  man  is  the  slave  of  what  other 
people  are  pleased  to  think, — and  how  little  it  requires 
to  disconcert  or  soothe  the  mind  that  is  greedy  of  praise : — 

Sic  levs-,  sic  parvum  est,  animum  quod  laudis  avarurn 

Submit  ac  reficit. 

Therefore  it  will  very  much  conduce  to  our  happiness 
if  we  duly  compare  the  value  of  what  a  man  is  in  and 
for  himself  with  what  he  is  in  the  eyes  of  others.  Under 
the  former  comes  everything  that  fills  up  the  span  of 
our  existence  and  makes  it  what  it  is,  in  short,  all  the 
advantages  already  considered  and  summed  up  under  the 
heads  of  personality  and  property;  and  the  sphere  in 
which  all  this  takes  place  is  the  man’s  own  consciousness. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  sphere  of  what  we  are  for  other 
people  is  their  consciousness,  not  ours;  it  is  the  kind  of 
figure  we  make  in  their  eyes,  together  with  the  thoughts 
which  this  arouses.  *  But  this  is  something  which  has 
no  direct  and  immediate  existence  for  us,  but  can  affect 
us  only  mediately  and  indirectly,  so  far,  that  is,  as  other 
people’s  behavior  toward  us  is  directed  by  it;  and  even 
then  it  ought  to  affect  us  only  in  so  far  as  it  can  move  us 
to  modify  what  we  are  in  and  for  ourselves.  Apart 
from  this,  what  goes  on  in  other  people’s  consciousness  is, 
as  such,  a  matter  of  indifference  to  us:  and  in  time  we 
get  really  indifferent  to  it,  when  we  come  to  see  how 
superficial  and  futile  are  most  people’s  thoughts,  how 
narrow  their  ideas,  how  mean  their  sentiments,  how  per¬ 
verse  their  opinions,  and  how  much  of  error  there  is  in 
most  of  them;  when  we  learn  by  experience  with  what 
depreciation  a  man  will  speak  of  his  fellow,  when  he  is 
not  obliged  to  fear  him,  or  thinks  that  what  he  says  will 
not  come  to  his  ears.  And  if  ever  we  have  had  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  how  the  greatest  of  men  will  meet 
with  nothing  but  slight  from  half-a-dozen  blockheads,  we 

*Let  me  remark  that  people  in  the  highest  positions  in  life,  with 
all  their  brilliance,  pomp,  display,  magnificence  and  general  show,  may 
well  say:  our  happiness  lies  entirely  outside  us,  for  it  exists  only  in 
the  heads  of  others. 


46 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


shall  understand  that  to  lay  great  value  upon  what  other 
people  say  is  to  pay  them  too  much  honor. 

At  all  events,  a  man  is  in  a  very  bad  way,  who  finds  no 
source  of  happiness  in  the  first  two  classes  of  blessings 
already  treated  of,  but  has  to  seek  it  in  the  third,  in  other 
words,  not  in  what  he  is  in  himself,  but  in  what  he  is  in 
the  opinion  of  others.  For,  after  all,  the  foundation  of  our 
whole  nature,  and,  therefore,  of  our  happiness,  is  our 
physique,  and  the  most  essential  factor  in  happiness  is  health, 
and,  next  in  importance  after  health,  the  ability  to  main¬ 
tain  ourselves  in  independence  and  freedom  from  care. 
There  can  be  no  competition  or  compensation  between 
these  essential  factors  on  the  one  side,  and  honor,  pomp, 
rank  and  reputation  on  the  other,  however  much 
value  we  may  set  upon  the  latter.  No  one  would  hesitate 
to  sacrifice  the  latter  for  the  former,  if  it  were  necessary. 
We  should  add  very  much  to  our  happiness  by  a  timely 
recognition  of  the  simple  truth  that  every  man’s  chief  and 
real  existence  is  in  his  own  skin,  and  not  in  other  people’s 
opinions;  and,  consequently,  that  the  actual  conditions  of 
our  personal  life, — health,  temperament,  capacity,  income, 
wife,  children,  friends,  home,  are  a  hundred  times  more 
important  for  our  happiness  than  what  other  people  are 
pleased  to  think  of  us;  otherwise  we  shall  be  miserable. 
And  if  people  insist  that  honor  is  dearer  than  life  itself, 
what  they  really  mean  is  that  existence  and  well-being  are 
as  nothing  compared  with  other  people’s  opinions.  Of 
course,  this  may  be  only  an  exaggerated  way  of  stating 
the  prosaic  truth  that  reputation,  that  is,  the  opinion 
others  have  of  us,  is  indispensable  if  we  are  to  make  any 
progress  in  the  world ;  but  I  shall  come  back  to  that  pres¬ 
ently.  When  we  see  that  almost  everything  men  devote  their 
lives  to  attain,  sparing  no  effort  and  encountering  a  thousand 
toils  and  dangers  in  the  process,  has,  in  the  end,  no  further  ob¬ 
ject  than  to  raise  themselves  in  the  estimation  of  others ;  when 
we  see  that  not  only  offices,  titles,  decorations,  but  also 
wealth,  nay,  even  knowledge  and  art,  are  striven  for  only 
to  obtain,  as  the  ultimate  goal  of  all  effort,  greater  respect 
from  one’s  fellow-men, —  is  not  this  a  lamentable  proof  of 
the  extent  to  which  human  folly  can  go  ?  To  set  much 
too  high  a  value  on  other  people’s  opinion  is  a  common 


REPUTATION 


47 


error  everywhere;  an  error,  it  may  be,  rooted  in  human 
nature  itself,  or  the  result  of  civilization  and  social 
arrangements  generally;  but,  whatever  its  source,  it  exer¬ 
cises  a  very  immoderate  influence  on  all  we  do,  and  is 
very  prejudicial  to  our  happiness.  We  can  trace  it  from 
a  timorous  and  slavish  regard  for  what  other  people  will 
say,  up  to  the  feeling  which  made  Virginius  plunge  the 
dagger  into  his  daughter’s  heart,  or  induces  many  a  man 
to  sacrifice  quiet,  riches,  health  and  even  life  itself,  for 
posthumous  glory.  Undoubtedly  this  feeling  is  a  very  con¬ 
venient  instrument  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have  the 
control  or  direction  of  their  fellow-men;  and  accordingly 
we  find  that  in  every  scheme  for  training  up  humanity 
in  the  way  it  should  go,  the  maintenance  and  strengthening 
of  the  feeling  of  honor  occupies  an  important  place.  But 
it  is  quite  a  different  matter  in  its  effect  on  human  happi¬ 
ness,  of  which  it  is  here  our  object  to  treat;  and  we 
should  rather  be  careful  to  dissuade  people  from  setting 
too  much  store  by  what  others  think  of  them.  Daily  ex¬ 
perience  shows  us,  however,  that  this  is  just  the  mistake 
people  persist  in  making;  most  men  set  the  utmost  value 
precisely  on  what  other  people  think,  and  are  more  con¬ 
cerned  about  it  than  about  what  goes  on  in  their  own 
consciousness,  which  is  the  thing  most  immediately  and 
directly  present  to  them.  They  reverse  the  natural  order, 
regarding  the  opinions  of  others  as  real  existence  and 
their  own  consciousness  as  something  shadowy;  making 
the  derivative  and  secondary  into  the  principal,  and  con¬ 
sidering  the  picture  they  present  to  the  world  of  more 
importance  than  their  own  selves.  By  thus  trying  to  get 
a  direct  and  immediate  result  out  of  what  has  no  really 
direct  or  immediate  existence,  they  fall  into  the  kind  of 
folly  which  is  called  vanity  —  the  appropriate  term  for 
that  which  has  no  solid  or  intrinsic  value.  Like  a  miser, 
such  people  forget  the  end  in  their  eagerness  to  obtain 
the  means. 

The  truth  is  that  the  value  we  set  upon  the  opinion  of 
others,  and  our  constant  endeavor  in  respect  of  it,  are  each 
quite  out  of  proportion  to  any  result  we  may  reasonably 
hope  to  attain;  so  that  this  attention  to  other  people’s  atti¬ 
tude  may  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  universal  mania  which 


48 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


everyone  inherits.  In  all  we  do,  almost  the  first  thing  we 
think  about  is:  what  will  people  say;  and  nearly  half 
the  troubles  and  bothers  of  life  may  be  traced  to  our  anxi¬ 
ety  on  this  score ;  it  is  the  anxiety  which  is  at  the  bottom 
of  all  that  feeling  of  self-importance,  which  is  so  often 
mortified  because  it  is  so  very  morbidly  sensitive.  It  is 
solicitude  about  what  others  will  say  that  underlies  all  our 
vanity  and  pretension,  yes,  and  all  our  show  and  swagger 
too.  Without  it,  there  would  not  be  a  tenth  part  of  the 
luxury  which  exists.  Pride  in  every  form,  point  d'honneur 
and  punctilio ,  however  varied  their  kind  or  sphere,  are  at 
bottom  nothing  but  this  —  anxiety  about  what  others  will 
say — and  what  sacrifices  it  often  costs!  One  can  see  it 
even  in  a  child;  and  though  it  exists  at  every  period  of 
life,  it  is  strongest  in  age ;  because,  when  the  capacity  for 
sensual  pleasure  fails,  vanity  and  pride  have  only  avarice 
to  share  their  dominion.  Frenchmen,  perhaps,  afford  the 
best  example  of  this  feeling,  and  among  them  it  is  a 
regular  epidemic,  appearing  sometimes  in  the  most  absurd 
ambition,  or  in  a  ridiculous  kind  of  national  vanity  and 
the  most  shameless  boasting.  However,  they  frustrate 
their  own  aims,  for  other  people  make  fun  of  them  and 
call  them  la  grande  natio7i. 

By  way  of  specially  illustrating  this  perverse  and  exu¬ 
berant  respect  for  other  people’s  opinion,  let  me  take  a 
passage  from  the  <(  Times  })  of  March  31st,  1846,  giving  a  de¬ 
tailed  account  of  the  execution  of  one  Thomas  Wix,  an 
apprentice  who,  from  motives  of  vengeance,  had  murdered 
his  master.  Here  we  have  very  unusual  circumstances 
and  an  extraordinary  character,  though  one  very  suitable 
for  our  purpose;  and  these  combine  to  give  a  striking 
picture  of  this  folly,  which  is  so  deeply  rooted  in  human 
nature,  and  allow  us  to  form  an  accurate  notion  of  the 
extent  to  which  it  will  go.  On  the  morning  of  the  exe¬ 
cution,  says  the  report,  the  rev.  ordinary  was  early  in 

ATTENDANCE  UPON  HIM,  BUT  WlX,  BEYOND  A  QUIET  DE¬ 
MEANOR,  BETRAYED  NO  INTEREST  IN  HIS  MINISTRATIONS,  AP¬ 
PEARING  TO  FEEL  ANXIOUS  ONLY  TO  ACQUIT  HIMSELF  (<  BRAVE¬ 
LY  »  BEFORE  THE  SPECTATORS  OF  HIS  IGNOMINIOUS  END.  .  . 

In  the  procession  Wix  fell  into  his  proper  place  with 

ALACRITY,  AND,  AS  HE  ENTERED  THE  CHAPEL-YARD,  RE- 


REPUTATION 


49 


MARKED,  SUFFICIENTLY  LOUD  TO  BE  HEARD  BY  SEVERAL  PER¬ 
SONS  NEAR  HIM,  <(  NOW,  THEN,  AS  Dr.  DODD  SAID,  I  SHALL 
SOON  KNOW  THE  GRAND  SECRET. W  On  REACHING  THE  SCAF¬ 
FOLD,  THE  MISERABLE  WRETCH  MOUNTED  THE  DROP  WITHOUT 
THE  SLIGHTEST  ASSISTANCE,  AND  WHEN  HE  GOT  TO  THE  CEN¬ 
TRE,  HE  BOWED  TO  THE  SPECTATORS  TWICE,  A  PROCEEDING 
WHICH  CALLED  FORTH  A  TREMENDOUS  CHEER  FROM  THE  DE¬ 
GRADED  CROWD  BENEATH. 

This  is  an  admirable  example  of  the  way  in  which  a 
man,  with  death  in  the  most  dreadful  form  before  his 
very  eyes,  and  eternity  beyond  it,  will  care  for  nothing 
but  the  impression  he  makes  upon  a  crowd  of  gapers,  and 
the  opinion  he  leaves  behind  him  in  their  heads.  There 
was  much  the  same  kind  of  thing  in  the  case  of  Le- 
comte,  who  was  executed  at  Frankfurt,  also  in  1846,  for 
an  attempt  on  the  king’s  life.  At  the  trial  he  was  very 
much  annoyed  that  he  was  not  allowed  to  appear  in 
decent  attire,  before  the  Upper  House;  and  on  the  day  of 
the  execution  it  was  a  special  grief  to  him  that  he  was 
not  permitted  to  shave.  It  is  not  only  in  recent  times 
that  this  kind  of  thing  has  been  known  to  happen.  Mateo 
Aleman  tells  us,  in  the  introduction  to  his  celebrated 
romance,  (<  Guzman  de  Alfarache,  ®  that  many  infatuated 
criminals,  instead  of  devoting  their  last  hours  to  the  wel¬ 
fare  of  their  souls,  as  they  ought  to  have  done,  neglect 
this  duty  for  the  purpose  of  preparing  and  committing  to 
memory  a  speech  to  be  made  from  the  scaffold. 

I  take  these  extreme  cases  as  being  the  best  illustrations 
of  what  I  mean;  for  they  give  us  a  magnified  reflection 
of  our  own  nature.  The  anxieties  of  all  of  us,  our  worries, 
vexations,  bothers,  troubles,  uneasy  apprehensions  and 
strenuous  efforts  are  due,  in  perhaps  the  large  majority 
of  instances,  to  what  other  people  will  say;  and  we  are 
just  as  foolish  in  this  respect  as  those  miserable  criminals. 
Envy  and  hatred  are  very  often  traceable  to  a  similar 
source. 

Now,  it  is  obvious  that  happiness,  which  consists  for 
the  most  part  in  peace  of  mind  and  contentment,  would 
be  served  by  nothing  so  much  as  by  reducing  this  impulse 
of  human  nature  within  reasonable  limits, —  which  would 
perhaps  make  it  one-fiftieth  part  of  what  it  is  now.  By 
4 


5° 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


doing  so,  we  should  get  rid  of  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  which 
is  always  causing  us  pain.  But  it  is  a  very  difficult  task, 
because  the  impulse  in  question  is  a  natural  and  innate 
perversity  of  human  nature.  Tacitus  says,  The  lust 

OF  FAME  IS  THE  LAST  THAT  A  WISE  MAN  SHAKES  OFF.  The 

only  way  of  putting  an  end  to  this  universal  folly  is  to 
see  clearly  that  it  is  a  folly;  and  this  may  be  done  by 
recognizing  the  fact  that  most  of  the  opinions  in  men’s 
heads  are  apt  to  be  false,  perverse,  erroneous  and  absurd, 
and  so  in  themselves  unworthy  of  any  attention;  further, 
that  other  people’s  opinions  can  have  very  little  real  and 
positive  influence  upon  us  in  most  of  the  circumstances 
and  affairs  of  life.  Again,  this  opinion  is  generally  of 
such  an  unfavorable  character  that  it  would  worry  a  man 
to  death  to  hear  everything  that  was  said  of  him,  or  the 
tone  in  which  he  was  spoken  of.  And  finally,  among 
other  things,  we  should  be  clear  about  the  fact  that  honor 
itself  has  no  really  direct,  but  only  an  indirect,  value. 
If  people  were  generally  converted  from  this  universal 
folly,  the  result  would  be  such  an  addition  to  our  peace 
of  mind  and  cheerfulness  as  at  present  seems  inconceiv¬ 
able;  people  would  present  a  firmer  and  more  confident 
front  to  the  world,  and  generally  behave  with  less 
embarrassment  and  restraint.  It  is  observable  that  a 
retired  mode  of  life  has  an  exceedingly  beneficial  influence 
on  our  peace  of  mind,  and  this  is  mainly  because  we  thus 
escape  having  to  live  constantly  in  the  sight  of  others, 
and  pay  everlasting  regard  to  their  casual  opinions;  in  a 
word,  we  are  able  to  return  upon  ourselves.  At  the  same 
time  a  good  deal  of  positive  misfortune  might  be  avoided, 
which  we  are  now  drawn  into  by  striving  after  shadows, 
or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  by  indulging  a  mischievous 
piece  of  folly;  and  we  should  consequently  have  more 
attention  to  give  to  solid  realities  and  enjoy  them  with 
less  interruption  than  at  present.  But  xa*£n<*  T<*  Ka ^  — 
what  is  worth  doing  is  hard  to  do. 


Section  2.  —  Pride. 


The  folly  of  our  nature  which  we  are  discussing  puts 
forth  three  shoots,  ambition,  vanity  and  pride.  The  dif¬ 
ference  between  the  last  two  is  this:  pride  is  an  estab¬ 
lished  conviction  of  one’s  own  paramount  worth  in  some 
particular  respect;  while  vanity  is  the  desire  of  rousing 
such  a  conviction  in  others,  and  it  is  generally  accom¬ 
panied  by  the  secret  hope  of  ultimately  coming  to  the 
same  conviction  oneself.  Pride  works  from  within;  it  is 
the  direct  appreciation  of  oneself.  Vanity  is  the  desire 
to  arrive  at  this  appreciation  indirectly,  from  without. 
So  we  find  that  vain  people  are  talkative,  and  proud, 
taciturn.  But  the  vain  person  ought  to  be  aware  that  the 
good  opinion  of  others,  which  he  strives  for,  may  be 
obtained  much  more  easily  and  certainly  by  persistent 
silence  than  by  speech,  even  though  he  has  very  good 
things  to  say.  Anyone  who  wishes  to  affect  pride  is  not 
therefore  a  proud  man;  but  he  will  soon  have  to  drop 
this,  as  every  other,  assumed  character. 

It  is  only  a  firm,  unshakeable  conviction  of  pre-eminent 
worth  and  special  value  which  makes  a  man  proud  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word,  —  a  conviction  which  may,  no 
doubt,  be  a  mistaken  one  or  rest  on  advantages  which 
are  of  an  adventitious  and  conventional  character;  still 
pride  is  not  the  less  pride  for  all  that,  so  long  as  it  be 
present  in  real  earnest.  And  since  pride  is  thus  rooted  in 
conviction,  it  resembles  every  other  form  of  knowledge  in 
not  being  within  our  own  arbitrament.  Pride’s  worst  foe, 
I  mean  its  greatest  obstacle,  is  vanity,  which  courts  the 
applause  of  the  world  in  order  to  gain  the  necessary 
foundation  for  a  high  opinion  of  one’s  own  worth,  while 
pride  is  based  upon  a  pre-existing  conviction  of  it. 

It  is  quite  true  that  pride  is  something  which  is  gener¬ 
ally  found  fault  with,  and  cried  down;  but  usually,  I 
imagine,  by  those  who  have  nothing  upon  which  they  can 
pride  themselves.  In  view  of  the  impudence  and  foolhardi¬ 
ness  of  most  people,  anyone  who  possesses  any  kind  of 
superiority  or  merit  will  do  well  to  keep  his  eyes  fixed  on 
it,  if  he  does  not  want  it  to  be  entirely  forgotten ;  for  if  a 

(5i) 


52 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


man  is  good-natured  enough  to  ignore  his  own  privileges, 
and  hobnob  with  the  generality  of  other  people,  as  if  he 
were  quite  on  their  level,  they  will  be  sure  to  treat  him, 
frankly  and  candidly,  as  one  of  themselves.  This  is  a  piece 
of  advice  I  would  specially  offer  to  those  whose  superiority 
is  of  the  highest  kind  —  real  superiority,  I  mean,  of  a  purely 
personal  nature  —  which  cannot,  like  orders  and  titles, 
appeal  to  the  eye  or  ear  at  every  moment;  as,  otherwise, 
they  will  find  that  familiarity  breeds  contempt,  or,  as  the 
Romans  used  to  say,  sus  Minervam.  Joke  with  a  slave, 
and  he’ll  soon  show  his  heels,  is  an  excellent  Arabian 
proverb;  nor  ought  we  to  despise  what  Horace  says, 

Sume  superbiam 
Quaesitatn  meritis. 

—  usurp  the  fame  you  have  deserved.  No  doubt,  when 
modesty  was  made  a  virtue,  it  was  a  very  advantageous 
thing  for  the  fools ;  for  everybody  is  expected  to  speak  of 
himself  as  if  he  were  one.  This  is  leveling  down  indeed! 
for  it  comes  to  look  as  if  there  were  nothing  but  fools  in 
the  world. 

The  cheapest  sort  of  pride  is  national  pride;  for  if  a 
man  is  proud  of  his  own  nation,  it  argues  that  he  has  no 
qualities  of  his  own  of  which  he  can  be  proud;  other¬ 
wise,  he  would  not  have  recourse  to  those  which  he  shares 
with  so  many  millions  of  his  fellow-men.  The  man  who 
is  endowed  with  important  personal  qualities  will  be  only 
too  ready  to  see  clearly  in  what  respect  his  own  nation 
falls  short,  since  their  failings  will  be  constantly  before 
his  eyes.  But  every  miserable  fool  who  has  nothing  at 
all  of  which  he  can  be  proud  adopts,  as  a  last  resource, 
pride  in  the  nation  to  which  he  belongs ;  he  is  ready  and 
glad  to  defend  all  its  faults  and  follies  tooth  and  nail, 
thus  reimbursing  himself  for  his  own  inferiority.  For 
example,  if  you  speak  of  the  stupid  and  degrading  big¬ 
otry  of  the  English  nation  with  the  contempt  it  deserves, 
you  will  hardly  find  one  Englishman  in  fifty  to  agree  with 
you;  but  if  there  should  be  one,  he  will  generally  happen 
to  be  an  intelligent  man. 

The  Germans  have  no  national  pride,  which  shows  how 
honest  they  are,  as  everybody  knows!  and  how  dishonest 


RANK 


53 


are  those  who,  by  a  piece  of  ridiculous  affectation,  pre¬ 
tend  that  they  are  proud  of  their  country  —  the  <(  Deutsche 
Bruder  n  and  the  demagogues  who  flatter  the  mob  in  order 
to  mislead  it.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  gunpowder  was 
invented  by  a  German.  I  doubt  it.  Lichtenberg  asks, 
Why  is  it  that  a  man  who  is  not  a  German  does  not 

CARE  ABOUT  PRETENDING  THAT  HE  IS  ONE;  AND  THAT  IF  HE 
MAKES  ANY  PRETENSE  AT  ALL,  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  FRENCHMAN  OR 

an  Englishman  ?* 

However  that  may  be,  individuality  is  a  far  more  im¬ 
portant  thing  than  nationality,  and  in  any  given  man  de¬ 
serves  a  thousandfold  more  consideration.  And  since 
you  cannot  speak  of  national  character  without  referring 
to  large  masses  of  people,  it  is  impossible  to  be  loud  in 
your  praises  and  at  the  same  time  honest.  National  char¬ 
acter  is  only  another  name  for  the  particular  form  which 
the  littleness,  perversity  and  baseness  of  mankind  take  in 
every  country.  If  we  become  disgusted  with  one,  we 
praise  another,  until  we  get  disgusted  with  this  too.  Every 
nation  mocks  at  other  nations,  and  all  are  right. 

The  contents  of  this  chapter,  which  treats,  as  I  have 
said,  of  what  we  represent  in  the  world,  or  what  we  are 
in  the  eyes  of  others,  may  be  further  distributed  under 
three  heads:  honor,  rank  and  fame. 


Section  3.  —  Rank. 

Let  us  take  rank  first,  as  it  may  be  dismissed  in  a  few 
words,  although  it  plays  an  important  part  in  the  eyes  of 
the  masses  and  of  the  philistines,  and  is  a  most  useful 
wheel  in  the  machinery  of  the  State. 

It  has  a  purely  conventional  value.  Strictly  speaking, 
it  is  a  sham;  its  method  is  to  exact  an  artificial  respect, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  whole  thing  is  a  mere  farce. 

Orders,  it  may  be  said,  are  bills  of  exchange  drawn  on 

*  Translator’s  Note. — It  should  be  remembered  that  these  re¬ 
marks  were  written  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  past  century,  and  that 
a  German  philosopher  nowadays,  even  though  he  were  as  apt  to  say 
bitter  things  as  Schopenhauer,  could  hardly  write  in  a  similar  strain. 


54 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


public  opinion,  and  the  measure  of  their  value  is  the 
credit  of  the  drawer.  Of  course,  as  a  substitute  for  pen¬ 
sions,  they  save  the  State  a  good  deal  of  money;  and, 
besides,  they  serve  a  very  useful  purpose,  if  they  are 
distributed  with  discrimination  and  judgment.  For  people 
in  general  have  eyes  and  ears,  it  is  true;  but  not  much 
else,  very  little  judgment  indeed,  or  even  memory. 
There  are  many  services  to  the  State  quite  beyond  the 
range  of  their  understanding;  others,  again,  are  appre¬ 
ciated  and  made  much  of  for  a  time,  and  then  soon  for¬ 
gotten.  It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  very  proper,  that  a 
cross  or  a  star  should  proclaim  to  the  mass  of  people 
always  and  everywhere,  This  man  is  not  like  you;  he  has 
done  something.  But  orders  lose  their  value  when  they 
are  distributed  unjustly,  or  without  due  selection,  or  in 
too  great  numbers:  a  prince  should  be  as  careful  in  con¬ 
ferring  them  as  a  man  of  business  is  in  signing  a  bill. 
It  is  a  pleonasm  to  inscribe  on  any  order  for  distin¬ 
guished  service;  for  every  order  ought  to  be  for  dis¬ 
tinguished  service.  That  stands  to  reason. 


Section  4.  —  Honor. 

Honor  is  a  much  larger  question  than  rank,  and  more 
difficult  to  discuss.  Let  us  begin  by  trying  to  define  it. 

If  I  were  to  say  Honor  is  external  conscience,  and 
conscience  is  inward  honor,  no  doubt  a  good  many  peo¬ 
ple  would  assent;  but  there  would  be  more  show  than 
reality  about  such  a  definition,  and  it  would  hardly  go  to 
the  root  of  the  matter.  I  prefer  to  say,  Honor  is,  on  its 

OBJECTIVE  SIDE,  OTHER  PEOPLE’S  OPINION  OF  WHAT  WE  ARE 
WORTH;  ON  ITS  SUBJECTIVE  SIDE,  IT  IS  THE  RESPECT  WE  PAY 

to  this  opinion.  From  the  latter  point  of  view,  to  be  a 
man  of  honor  is  to  exercise  what  is  often  a  very  whole¬ 
some,  but  by  no  means  a  purely  moral,  influence. 

The  feelings  of  honor  and  shame  exist  in  every  man 
who  is  not  utterly  depraved,  and  honor  is  everywhere 
recognized  as  something  particularly  valuable.  The  reason 
of  this  is  as  follows.  By  and  in  himself  a  man  can  accom- 


HONOR 


55 


plish  very  little;  he  is  like  Robinson  Crusoe  on  a  desert 
island.  It  is  only  in  society  that  a  man’s  powers  can  be 
called  into  full  activity.  He  very  soon  finds  this  out  when 
his  consciousness  begins  to  develop,  and  their  arises  in  him 
the  desire  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  useful  member  of  soci¬ 
ety,  as  one,  that  is,  who  is  capable  of  playing  his  part  as 
a  man  — pro  parte  virili  —  thereby  acquiring  a  right  to  the 
benefits  of  social  life.  Now,  to  be  a  useful  member  of  so¬ 
ciety,  one  must  do  two  things:  firstly,  what  everyone  is 
expected  to  do  everywhere ;  and,  secondly,  what  one’s  own 
particular  position  in  the  world  demands  and  requires. 

But  a  man  soon  discovers  that  everything  depends  upon 
his  being  useful,  not  in  his  own  opinion,  but  in  the 
opinion  of  others;  and  so  he  tries  his  best  to  make  that 
favorable  impression  upon  the  world,  to  which  he  attaches 
such  a  high  value.  Hence,  this  primitive  and  innate  char¬ 
acteristic  of  human  nature,  which  is  called  the  feeling  of 
honor,  or,  under  another  aspect,  the  feeling  of  shame  — 
verecwidia.  It  is  this  which  brings  a  blush  to  his  cheek 
at  the  thought  of  having  suddenly  to  fall  in  the  estima¬ 
tion  of  others,  even  when  he  knows  that  he  is  innocent, 
nay,  even  if  his  remissness  extends  to  no  absolute  obliga¬ 
tion,  but  only  to  one  which  he  has  taken  upon  himself  of 
his  own  free  will.  Conversely,  nothing  in  life  gives  a  man 
so  much  courage  as  the  attainment  or  renewal  of  the  con¬ 
viction  that  other  people  regard  him  with  favor;  because 
it  means  that  everyone  joins  to  give  him  help  and  protec¬ 
tion,  which  is  an  infinitely  stronger  bulwark  against  the 
ills  of  life  than  anything  he  can  do  himself. 

The  variety  of  relations  in  which  a  man  can  stand  to 
other  people  so  as  to  obtain  their  confidence,  that  is, 
their  good  opinion,  gives  rise  to  a  distinction  between 
several  kinds  of  honor,  resting  chiefly  on  the  different 
bearings  that  meum  may  take  to  tuum;  or,  again,  on  the 
performance  of  various  pledges;  or  finally,  on  the  relation 
of  the  sexes.  Hence,  there  are  three  main  kinds  of  honor, 
each  of  which  takes  various  forms  —  civic  honor,  official 
honor,  and  sexual  honor. 

Civic  honor  has  the  widest  sphere  of  all.  It  consists 
in  the  assumption  that  we  shall  pay  unconditional  respect 
to  the  rights  of  others,  and,  therefore,  never  use  any 


56 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


unjust  or  unlawful  means  of  getting  what  we  want.  It 
is  the  condition  of  all  peaceable  intercourse  between  man 
and  man ;  and  it  is  destroyed  by  anything  that  openly  and 
manifestly  militates  against  this  peaceable  intercourse, 
anything,  accordingly,  which  entails  punishment  at  the 
hands  of  the  law,  always  supposing  that  the  punishment 
is  a  just  one. 

The  ultimate  foundation  of  honor  is  the  conviction  that 
moral  character  is  unalterable:  a  single  bad  action  implies 
that  future  actions  of  the  same  kind  will,  under  similar 
circumstances,  also  be  bad.  This  is  well  expressed  by 
the  English  use  of  the  word  character  as  meaning  credit, 
reputation,  honor.  Hence  honor,  once  lost,  can  never  be 
recovered,  unless  the  loss  rested  on  some  mistake,  such 
as  may  occur  if  a  man  is  slandered  or  his  actions  viewed 
in  a  false  light.  So  the  law  provides  remedies  against 
slander,  libel,  and  even  insult;  for  insult,  though  it  amount 
to  no  more  than  mere  abuse,  is  a  kind  of  summary  slan¬ 
der  with  a  suppression  of  the  reasons.  What  I  mean 
may  be  well  put  in  the  Greek  phrase  —  not  quoted  from 
any  author  —  ?<mv  ^  Xoidopia  diafioXi)  awTopd?.  It  is  true 
that  if  a  man  abuses  another,  he  is  simply  showing  that 
he  has  no  real  or  true  causes  of  complaint  against  him; 
as,  otherwise,  he  would  bring  these  forward  as  the 
premises,  and  rely  upon  his  hearers  to  draw  the  conclusion 
themselves;  instead  of  which,  he  gives  the  conclusion  and 
leaves  out  the  premises,  trusting  that  people  will  suppose 
that  he  has  done  so  only  for  the  sake  of  being  brief. 

Civic  honor  draws  its  existence  and  name  from  the 
middle  classes;  but  it  applies  equally  to  all,  not  excepting 
the  highest.  No  man  can  disregard  it,  and  it  is  a  very 
serious  thing,  of  which  everyone  should  be  careful  not  to 
make  light.  The  man  who  breaks  confidence  has  forever 
forfeited  confidence,  whatever  he  may  do,  and  whoever 
he  may  be;  and  the  bitter  consequences  of  the  loss  of 
confidence  can  never  be  averted. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  honor  may  be  said  to  have  a 
negative  character  in  opposition  to  the  positive  character 
of  fame.  For  honor  is  not  the  opinion  people  have  of 
particular  qualities  which  a  man  may  happen  to  possess 
exclusively:  it  is  rather  the  opinion  they  have  of  the 


HONOR 


57 


qualities  which  a  man  may  be  expected  to  exhibit,  and 
to  which  he  should  not  prove  false.  Honor,  therefore, 
means  that  a  man  is  not  exceptional;  fame,  that  he  is. 
Fame  is  something  which  must  be  won ;  honor,  only  some¬ 
thing  which  must  not  be  lost.  The  absence  of  fame  is 
obscurity,  which  is  only  a  negative;  but  loss  of  honor  is 
shame,  which  is  a  positive  quality.  This  negative  char¬ 
acter  of  honor  must  not  be  confused  with  anything  pas¬ 
sive;  for  honor  is  above  all  things  active  in  its  working. 
It  is  the  only  quality  which  proceeds  directly  from  the 
man  who  exhibits  it:  it  is  concerned  entirely  with  what 
he  does  and  leaves  undone,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  actions  of  others  or  the  obstacles  they  place  in  his 
way.  It  is  something  entirely  in  our  own  power  — 
tujv  k<£v)[w>v.  This  distinction,  as  we  shall  see  presently, 
marks  off  true  honor  from  the  sham  honor  of  chivalry. 

Slander  is  the  only  weapon  by  which  honor  can  be 
attacked  from  without;  and  the  only  way  to  repel  the 
attack  is  to  confute  the  slander  with  the  proper  amount  of 
publicity,  and  a  due  unmasking  of  him  who  utters  it. 

The  reason  why  respect  is  paid  to  age  is  that  old  peo¬ 
ple  have  necessarily  shown  in  the  course  of  their  lives 
whether  or  not  they  have  been  able  to  maintain  their 
honor  unblemished;  while  that  of  young  people  has  not 
yet  been  put  to  the  proof,  though  they  are  credited  with 
the  possession  of  it.  For  neither  length  of  years,  equaled 
as  it  is,  and  even  excelled,  in  the  case  of  some  of  the 
lower  animals,  nor,  again,  experience,  which  is  only  a 
closer  knowledge  of  the  world’s  ways,  can  be  any  suf¬ 
ficient  reason  for  the  respect  which  the  young  are  every¬ 
where  required  to  show  toward  the  old:  for  if  it  were 
merely  a  matter  of  years,  the  weakness  which  attends  on 
age  would  call  rather  for  consideration  than  for  respect. 
It  is,  however,  a  remarkable  fact  that  white  hair  always 
commands  reverence  —  a  reverence  really  innate  and  in¬ 
stinctive.  Wrinkles  —  a  much  surer  sign  of  old  age  — 
command  no  reverence  at  all:  you  never  hear  any  one 
speak  of  venerable  wrinkles,  but  venerable  white  hair 
is  a  common  expression. 

Honor  has  only  an  indirect  value.  For.,  as  I  explained 
at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  what  other  people  think 


58 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


of  us,  if  it  affects  us  at  all,  can  affect  us  only  in  so  far 
as  it  governs  their  behavior  toward  us,  and  only  just  so 
long  as  we  live  with,  or  have  to  do  with,  them.  But  it 
is  to  society  alone  that  we  owe  that  safety  which  we  and 
our  possessions  enjoy  in  a  state  of  civilization;  in  all  we 
do  we  need  the  help  of  others,  and  they,  in  their  turn, 
must  have  confidence  in  us  before  they  can  have  any¬ 
thing  to  do  with  us.  Accordingly,  their  opinion  of  us  is, 
indirectly,  a  matter  of  great  importance;  though  I  can¬ 
not  see  how  it  can  have  a  direct  or  immediate  value. 
This  is  an  opinion  also  held  by  Cicero.  I  quite  agree, 
he  writes,  with  what  Chrysippus  and  Diogenes  used 
TO  say,  that  a  good  reputation  is  not  worth  rais¬ 
ing  A  FINGER  TO  OBTAIN,  IF  IT  WERE  NOT  THAT  IT  IS 

so  useful.  This  truth  has  been  insisted  upon  at  great 
length  by  Helvetius  in  his  chief  work  (<  De  1’  Esprit, * 
the  conclusion  of  which  is  that  we  love  esteem  not  for 

ITS  OWN  SAKE,  BUT  SOLELY  FOR  THE  ADVANTAGES  WHICH  IT 

brings.  And  as  the  means  can  never  be  more  than  the 
end,  that  saying,  of  which  so  much  is  made,  honor  is 
dearer  than  life  itself,  is,  as  I  have  remarked,  a 
very  exaggerated  statement.  So  much,  then,  for  civic  honor. 

Official  honor  is  the  general  opinion  of  other  people 
that  a  man  who  fills  any  office  really  has  the  necessary 
qualities  for  the  proper  discharge  of  all  the  duties  which 
appertain  to  it.  The  greater  and  more  important  the 
duties  a  man  has  to  discharge  in  the  State,  and  the 
higher  and  more  influential  the  office  which  he  fills, 
the  stronger  must  be  the  opinion  which  people  have  of 
the  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  which  render  him  fit 
for  his  post.  Therefore,  the  higher  his  position,  the 
greater  must  be  the  degree  of  honor  paid  to  him,  ex¬ 
pressed,  as  it  is,  in  titles,  orders  and  the  generally  sub¬ 
servient  behavior  of  others  toward  him.  As  a  rule,  a 
man’s  official  rank  implies  the  particular  degree  of  honor 
which  ought  to  be  paid  to  him,  however  much  this  degree 
may  be  modified  by  the  capacity  of  the  masses  to  form 
any  notion  of  its  importance.  Still,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
greater  honor  is  paid  to  a  man  who  fulfills  special  duties 
than  to  the  common  citizen,  whose  honor  mainly  consists 
in  keeping  clear  of  dishonor. 


HONOR 


59 


Official  honor  demands,  further,  that  the  man  who  occu¬ 
pies  an  office  must  maintain  respect  for  it,  for  the  sake 
both  of  his  colleagues  and  of  those  who  will  come  after 
him.  This  respect  an  official  can  maintain  by  a  proper 
observance  of  his  duties,  and  by  repelling  any  attack  that 
may  be  made  upon  the  office  itself  or  upon  its  occupant: 
he  must  not,  for  instance,  pass  over  unheeded  any  state¬ 
ment  to  the  effect  that  the  duties  of  the  office  are  not 
properly  discharged,  or  that  the  office  itself  does  not 
conduce  to  the  public  welfare.  He  must  prove  the  un¬ 
warrantable  nature  of  such  attacks  by  enforcing  the  legal 
penalty  for  them. 

Subordinate  to  the  honor  of  official  personages  comes 
that  of  those  who  serve  the  state  in  any  other  capacity, 
as  doctors,  lawyers,  teachers,  anyone,  in  short,  who  by 
graduating  in  any  subject,  or  by  any  other  public  declara¬ 
tion  that  he  is  qualified  to  exercise  some  special  skill, 
claims  to  practice  it;  in  a  word,  the  honor  of  all  those 
who  take  any  public  pledges  whatever.  Under  this  head 
comes  military  honor,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  the 
opinion  that  people  who  have  bound  themselves  to  de¬ 
fend  their  country  really  possess  the  requisite  qualities 
which  will  enable  them  to  do  so,  especially  courage,  per¬ 
sonal  bravery  and  strength,  and  that  they  are  perfectly 
ready  to  defend  their  country  to  the  death,  and  never 
and  under  no  circumstances  desert  the  flag  to  which  they 
have  once  sworn  allegiance.  I  have  here  taken  official 
honor  in  a  wider  sense  than  that  in  which  it  is  generally 
used,  namely,  the  respect  due  by  citizens  to  an  office 
itself. 

In  treating  of  sexual  honor  and  the  principles  on 
which  it  rests,  a  little  more  attention  and  analysis  are 
necessary;  and  what  I  shall  say  will  support  my  conten¬ 
tion  that  all  honor  really  rests  upon  a  utilitarian  basis. 
There  are  two  natural  divisions  of  the  subject  —  the  honor 
of  women  and  the  honor  of  men,  in  either  side  issuing 
in  a  well-understood  esprit  de  corps.  The  former  is  by 
far  the  more  important  of  the  two,  because  the  most 
essential  feature  in  woman's  life  is  her  relation  to  man. 

Female  honor  is  the  general  opinion  in  regard  to  a 
girl  that  she  is  pure,  and  in  regard  to  a  wife  that  she 


6o 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


is  faithful.  The  importance  of  this  opinion  rests  upon 
the  following  considerations.  Women  depend  upon  men 
in  all  the  relations  of  life;  men  upon  women,  it  might 
be  said,  in  one  only.  So  an  arrangement  is  made  for 
mutual  interdependence  —  man  undertaking  responsibility 
for  all  woman’s  needs  and  also  for  the  children  that 
spring  from  their  union  —  an  arrangement  on  which  is 
based  the  welfare  of  the  whole  female  race.  To  carry 
out  this  plan,  women  have  to  band  together  with  a  show 
of  esprit  de  corps ,  and  present  one  undivided  front  to 
their  common  enemy,  man  —  who  possesses  all  the  good 
things  of  the  earth,  in  virtue  of  his  superior  physical  and 
intellectual  power  —  in  order  to  lay  siege  to  and  con¬ 
quer  him,  and  so  get  possession  of  him  and  a  share  of 
those  good  things.  To  this  end  the  honor  of  all  women 
depends  upon  the  enforcement  of  the  rule  that  no  woman 
should  give  herself  to  a  man  except  in  marriage,  in 
order  that  every  man  may  be  forced,  as  it  were,  to  sur¬ 
render  and  ally  himself  with  a  woman;  by  this  arrange¬ 
ment  provision  is  made  for  the  whole  of  the  female  race. 
This  is  a  result,  however,  which  can  be  obtained  only 
by  a  strict  observance  of  the  rule;  and  accordingly, 
women  everywhere  show  true  esprit  de  corps  in  carefully 
insisting  upon  its  maintenance.  Any  girl  who  commits 
a  breach  of  the  rule  betrays  the  whole  female  race,  be¬ 
cause  its  welfare  would  be  destroyed  if  every  woman 
were  to  do  likewise;  so  she  is  cast  out  with  shame  as 
one  who  has  lost  her  honor.  No  woman  will  have  any¬ 
thing  more  to  do  with  her ;  she  is  avoided  like  the  plague. 
The  same  doom  is  awarded  to  a  woman  who  breaks  the 
marriage  tie;  for  in  so  doing  she  is  false  to  the  terms 
upon  which  the  man  capitulated;  and  as  her  conduct  is 
such  as  to  frighten  other  men  from  making  a  similar 
surrender,  it  imperils  the  welfare  of  all  her  sisters.  Nay 
more;  this  deception  and  coarse  breach  of  troth  is  a 
crime  punishable  by  the  loss,  not  only  of  personal,  but 
also  of  civic  honor.  This  is  why  we  minimize  the 
shame  of  a  girl,  but  not  of  a  wife ;  because  in  the 
former  case,  marriage  can  restore  honor,  while  in  the 
latter,  no  atonement  can  be  made  for  the  breach  of  con¬ 
tract. 


HONOR 


61 


Once  this  esprit  de  corps  is  acknowledged  to  be  the 
foundation  of  female  honor,  and  is  seen  to  be  a  whole¬ 
some,  nay,  a  necessary  arrangement,  as  at  bottom  a 
matter  of  prudence  and  interest,  its  extreme  importance 
for  the  welfare  of  women  will  be  recognized.  But  it 
does  not  possess  anything  more  than  a  relative  value.  It 
is  no  absolute  end,  lying  beyond  all  other  aims  of  exist¬ 
ence  and  valued  above  life  itself.  In  this  view,  there  will 
be  nothing  to  applaud  in  the  forced  and  extravagant  con¬ 
duct  of  a  Lucretia  or  a  Virginius  —  conduct  which  can 
easily  degenerate  into  tragic  farce,  and  produce  a  terri¬ 
ble  feeling  of  revulsion.  The  conclusion  of  ®  Emelia  Ga- 
lotti,”  for  instance,  makes  one  leave  the  theatre  completely 
ill  at  ease;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  all  the  rules  of  female 
honor  cannot  prevent  a  certain  sympathy  with  Clara  in 
(<  Egmont. >J  To  carry  this  principle  of  female  honor  too 
far  is  to  forget  the  end  in  thinking  of  the  means  —  and 
this  is  just  what  people  often  do;  for  such  exaggeration 
suggests  that  the  value  of  sexual  honor  is  absolute ;  while 
the  truth  is  that  it  is  more  relative  than  any  other  kind. 
One  might  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  its  value  is  purely 
conventional,  when  one  sees  from  Thomasius  how  in  all 
ages  and  countries,  up  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation, 
irregularities  were  permitted  and  recognized  by  law,  with 
no  derogation  to  female  honor  —  not  to  speak  of  the 
temple  of  Mylitta  at  Babylon. 

There  are  also,  of  course,  certain  circumstances  in  civil 
life  which  make  external  forms  of  marriage  impossible, 
especially  in  Catholic  countries,  where  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  divorce.  Ruling  princes  everywhere,  would,  in 
my  opinion,  do  much  better,  from  a  moral  point  of  view, 
to  dispense  with  forms  altogether  rather  than  contract  a 
morganatic  marriage,  the  descendants  of  which  might 
raise  claims  to  the  throne  if  the  legitimate  stock  hap¬ 
pened  to  die  out;  so  that  there  is  a  possibility,  though, 
perhaps,  a  remote  one,  that  a  morganatic  marriage  might 
produce  a  civil  war.  And,  besides,  such  a  marriage, 
concluded  in  defiance  of  all  outward  ceremony,  is  a  con¬ 
cession  made  to  women  and  priests  —  two  classes  of  per¬ 
sons  to  whom  one  should  be  most  careful  to  give  as  little 
tether  as  possible.  It  is  further  to  be  remarked  that 


62 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


every  man  in  a  country  can  marry  the  woman  of  his 
choice,  except  one  poor  individual,  namely,  the  prince. 
His  hand  belongs  to  his  country,  and  can  be  given  in 
marriage  only  for  reasons  of  State,  that  is,  for  the  good 
of  the  country.  Still,  for  all  that,  he  is  a  man;  and,  as 
a  man,  he  likes  to  follow  whither  his  heart  leads.  It  is 
an  unjust,  ungrateful,  and  priggish  thing  to  forbid,  or  to 
desire  to  forbid,  a  prince  from  following  his  inclinations 
in  this  matter;  of  course,  as  long  as  the  lady  has  no  in¬ 
fluence  upon  the  Government  of  the  country.  From  her 
point  of  view  she  occupies  an  exceptional  position,  and 
does  not  come  under  the  ordinary  rules  of  sexual  honor; 
for  she  has  merely  given  herself  to  a  man  who  loves 
her,  and  whom  she  loves  but  cannot  marry.  And  in 
general,  the  fact  that  the  principle  of  female  honor  has 
no  origin  in  nature,  is  shown  by  the  many  bloody  sacri¬ 
fices  which  have  been  offered  to  it  —  the  murder  of 
children  and  the  mother’s  suicide.  No  doubt  a  girl  who 
contravenes  the  code  commits  a  breach  of  faith  against 
her  whole  sex;  but  this  faith  is  one  which  is  only  secretly 
taken  for  granted,  and  not  sworn  to.  And  since,  in  most 
cases,  her  own  prospects  suffer  most  immediately,  her 
folly  is  infinitely  greater  than  her  crime. 

The  corresponding  virtue  in  men  is  a  product  of  the 
one  I  have  been  discussing.  It  is  their  esprit  de  corps , 
which  demands  that,  when  a  man  has  made  that  surren¬ 
der  of  himself  in  marriage  which  is  so  advantageous  to 
his  conqueror,  he  shall  take  care  that  the  terms  of  the 
treaty  are  maintained;  both  in  order  that  the  agreement 
itself  may  lose  none  of  its  force  by  the  permission  of  any 
laxity  in  its  observance,  and  that  men,  having  given  up 
everything,  may,  at  least,  be  assured  of  their  bargain, 
namely,  exclusive  possession.  Accordingly,  it  is  part  of 
a  man’s  honor  to  resent  a  breach  of  the  marriage  tie  on 
the  part  of  his  wife,  and  to  punish  it,  at  the  very  least 
by  separating  from  her.  If  he  condones  the  offense,  his 
fellow-men  cry  shame  upon  him;  but  the  shame  in  this 
case  is  not  nearly  so  foul  as  that  of  the  woman  who  has 
lost  her  honor;  the  stain  is  by  no  means  of  so  deep  a 
dye  —  levioris  notae  macula;  —  because  a  man’s  relation  to 
woman  is  subordinate  to  many  other  and  more  important 


HONOR 


63 


affairs  in  his  life.  The  two  great  dramatic  poets  of 
modern  times  have  each  taken  man’s  honor  as  the  theme 
of  two  plays;  Shakespeare  in  <(  Othello  and  (<  The  Win¬ 
ter’s  Tale, w  and  Calderon  in  <(  El  Medico  de  su  Honra }> 
(the  Physician  of  his  Honor),  and  (<A  Secreto  Agravio 
Secreta  Venganza”  (for  Secret  Insult  Secret  Vengeance ). 
It  should  be  said,  however,  that  honor  demands  the 
punishment  of  the  wife  only;  to  punish  her  paramour 
too,  is  a  work  of  supererogation.  This  confirms  the  view 
I  have  taken,  that  a  man’s  honor  originates  in  esprit  de 
corps. 

The  kind  of  honor  which  I  have  been  discussing  hith¬ 
erto  has  always  existed  in  its  various  forms  and  principles 
among  all  nations  and  at  all  times;  although  the  history 
of  female  honor  shows  that  its  principles  have  undergone 
certain  local  modifications  at  different  periods.  But  there 
is  another  species  of  honor  which  differs  from  this  entirely, 
a  species  of  honor  of  which  the  Greeks  and  Romans  had 
no  conception,  and  up  to  this  day  it  is  perfectly  unknown 
among  Chinese,  Hindoos  or  Mohammedans.  It  is  a  kind 
of  honor  which  arose  only  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  is 
indigenous  only  to  Christian  Europe,  nay,  only  to  an 
extremely  small  portion  of  the  population,  that  is  to  say, 
the  higher  classes  of  society,  and  those  who  ape  them. 
It  is  knightly  honor,  or  point  d’ honneur .  Its  prin¬ 
ciples  are  quite  different  from  those  which  underlie  the 
kind  of  honor  I  have  been  treating  until  now,  and  in 
some  respects  are  even  opposed  to  them.  The  sort  I  am 
referring  to  produces  the  cavalier;  while  the  other  kind 
creates  the  man  of  honor.  As  this  is  so,  I  shall  proceed 
to  give  an  explanation  of  its  principles,  as  a  kind  of  code 
or  mirror  of  knightly  courtesy. 

'  (1.)  To  begin  with,  honor  of  this  sort  consists,  not  in 
other  people’s  opinion  of  what  we  are  worth,  but  wholly 
and  entirely  in  whether  they  express  it  or  not,  no  matter 
whether  they  really  have  any  opinion  at  all,  let  alone 
whether  they  know  of  reasons  for  having  one.  Other 
people  may  entertain  the  worst  opinion  of  us  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  what  we  do,  and  may  despise  us  as  much  as 
they  like;  so  long  as  no  one  dares  to  give  expression  to 
his  opinion,  our  honor  remains  untarnished.  So  if  our 


64 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


actions  and  qualities  compel  the  highest  respect  from 
other  people,  and  they  have  no  option  but  to  give  this 
respect, —  as  soon  as  any  one,  no  matter  how  wicked  or 
foolish  he  may  be,  utters  something  depreciatory  of  us, 
our  honor  is  offended,  nay,  gone  forever,  unless  we  can 
manage  to  restore  it.  A  superfluous  proof  of  what  I  say, 
namely,  that  knightly  honor  depends,  not  upon  what 
people  think,  but  upon  what  they  say,  is  furnished  by 
the  fact  that  insults  can  be  withdrawn,  or,  if  necessary, 
form  the  subject  of  an  apology,  which  makes  them  as 
though  they  had  never  been  uttered.  Whether  the 
opinion  which  underlay  the  expression  has  also  been 
rectified,  and  why  the  expression  should  ever  have  been 
used,  are  questions  which  are  perfectly  unimportant:  so 
long  as  the  statement  is  withdrawn,  all  is  well.  The 
truth  is  that  conduct  of  this  kind  aims,  not  at  earning 
respect,  but  at  extorting  it. 

(2.)  In  the  second  place,  this  sort  of  honor  rests,  not 
on  what  a  man  does,  but  on  what  he  suffers,  the  obsta¬ 
cles  he  encounters;  differing  from  the  honor  which  pre¬ 
vails  in  all  else,  in  consisting,  not  in  what  he  says  or 
does  himself,  but  in  what  another  man  says  or  does.  His 
honor  is  thus  at  the  mercy  of  every  man  who  can  talk  it 
away  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue;  and  if  he  attacks  it,  in  a 
moment  it  is  gone  forever, —  unless  the  man  who  is  at¬ 
tacked  manages  to  wrest  it  back  again  by  a  process 
which  I  shall  mention  presently,  a  process  which  involves 
danger  to  his  life,  health,  freedom,  property  and  peace 
of  mind.  A  man’s  whole  conduct  may  be  in  accordance 
with  the  most  righteous  and  noble  principles,  his  spirit 
may  be  the  purest  that  ever  breathed,  his  intellect  of  the 
very  highest  order;  and  yet  his  honor  may  disappear  the 
moment  that  anyone  is  pleased  to  insult  him,  anyone  at 
all  who  has  not  offended  against  this  code  of  honor  him¬ 
self,  let  him  be  the  most  worthless  rascal  or  the  most 
stupid  beast,  an  idler,  gambler;  debtor,  a  man,  in  short, 
of  no  account  at  all.  It  is  usually  this  sort  of  fellow 
who  likes  to  insult  people ;  for,  as  Seneca  rightly  remarks, 
ut  quisque  contemtissimus  et  ludibrio  est ,  it  a  solutissimce 
linguce  est — the  more  contemptible  and  ridiculous  a  man 
is,  the  readier  he  is  with  his  tongue.  His  insults  are 


HONOR 


65 


most  likely  to  be  directed  against  the  very  kind  of  man 
I  have  described,  because  people  of  different  tastes  can 
never  be  friends,  and  the  sight  of  pre-eminent  merit  is 
apt  to  raise  the  secret  ire  of  a  ne’er-do-well.  What 
Goethe  says  in  the  <(  Westostlicher  Divan w  is  quite  true, 
that  it  is  useless  to  complain  against  your  enemies;  for 
they  can  never  become  your  friends,  if  your  whole 
being  is  a  standing  reproach  to  them: — 

Was  klagst  du  iiber  Feinde  ? 

Solten  Solche  je  werden  Freunde 
Denen  das  Wesen  wie  du  bist, 

Im  stillen  ein  ewiger  Vorwurf  ist  ? 

It  is  obvious  that  people  of  this  worthless  description 
have  good  cause  to  be  thankful  to  the  principle  of  honor, 
because  it  puts  them  on  a  level  with  people  who  in  every 
other  respect  stand  far  above  them.  If  a  fellow  likes  to 
insult  anyone,  attribute  to  him,  for  example,  some  bad 
quality,  this  is  taken  prima  facie  as  a  well-founded  opin¬ 
ion,  true  in  fact;  a  decree,  as  it  were,  with  all  the  force 
of  law ;  nay,  if  it  is  not  at  once  wiped  out  in  blood,  it  is 
a  judgment  which  holds  good  and  valid  to  all  time.  In 
other  words,  the  man  who  is  insulted  remains  —  in  the 
eyes  of  all  honorable  people  —  what  the  man  who  uttered 
the  insult  —  even  though  he  were  the  greatest  wretch  on 
earth  —  was  pleased  to  call  him;  for  he  has  put  up  with 
the  insult — the  technical  term,  I  believe.  Accordingly, 
all  honorable  people  will  have  nothing  more  to  do  with 
him,  and  treat  him  like  a  leper,  and,  it  may  be,  refuse 
to  go  into  any  company  where  he  may  be  found,  and  so  on. 

This  wise  proceeding  may,  I  think,  be  traced  back  to 
the  fact  that  in  the  Middle  Ages,  up  to  the  fifteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  it  was  not  the  accuser  in  any  criminal  process  who 
had  to  prove  the  guilt  of  the  accused,  but  the  accused 
who  had  to  prove  his  innocence.  This  he  could  do  by 
swearing  he  was  not  guilty;  and  his  backers  —  consacra- 
mentales  —  had  to  come  and  swear  that  in  their  opinion 
he  was  incapable  of  perjury.  If  he  could  find  no  one  to 
help  him  in  this  way,  or  the  accuser  took  objection  to 
his  backers,  recourse  was  had  to  trial  by  the  Judgment 
of  God,  which  generally  meant  a  duel.  For  the  accused 
5 


66 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


was  now  in  disgrace,*  and  had  to  clear  himself.  Here, 
then,  is  the  origin  of  the  notion  of  disgrace,  and  of  that 
whole  system  which  prevails  now-a-days  among  honor¬ 
able  people  —  only  that  the  oath  is  omitted.  This  is 
also  the  explanation  of  that  deep  feeling  of  indignation 
which  honorable  people  are  called  upon  to  show  if  they 
are  given  the  lie;  it  is  a  reproach  which  they  say  must 
be  wiped  out  in  blood.  It  seldom  comes  to  this  pass, 
however,  though  lies  are  of  common  occurrence ;  but  in 
England,  more  than  elsewhere,  it  is  a  superstition  which 
has  taken  very  deep  root.  As  a  matter  of  order,  a  man 
who  threatens  to  kill  another  for  telling  a  lie  should 
never  have  told  one  himself.  The  fact  is,  that  the  crim¬ 
inal  trial  of  the  Middle  Ages  also  admitted  of  a  shorter 
form.  In  reply  to  the  charge,  the  accused  answered: 
That  is  a  lie;  whereupon  it  was  left  to  be  decided  by 
the  Judgment  of  God.  Hence,  the  code  of  knightly 
honor  prescribes  that,  when  the  lie  is  given,  an  appeal 
to  arms  follows  as  a  matter  of  course.  So  much,  then, 
for  the  theory  of  insult. 

But  there  is  something  even  worse  than  insult,  some¬ 
thing  so  dreadful  that  I  must  beg  pardon  of  all  honor¬ 
able  people  for  so  much  as  mentioning  it  in  this  code  of 
knightly  honor;  for  I  know  they  will  shiver,  and  their 
hair  will  stand  on  end,  at  the  very  thought  of  it  —  the 
summum  malum ,  the  greatest  evil  on  earth,  worse  than 
death  and  damnation.  A  man  may  give  another  —  hor- 
ribile  dictu! — a  slap  or  a  blow.  This  is  such  an  awful 
thing,  and  so  utterly  fatal  to  all  honor,  that,  while  any 
other  species  of  insult  may  be  healed  by  blood-letting, 
this  can  be  cured  only  by  the  coup  de  grdce. 

(3.)  In  the  third  place,  this  kind  of  honor  has  abso¬ 
lutely  nothing  to  do  with  what  a  man  may  be  in  and  for 
himself;  or,  again,  with  the  question  whether  his  moral 
character  can  ever  become  better  or  worse,  and  all  such 
pedantic  inquiries.  If  your  honor  happens  to  be  attacked, 
or  to  all  appearances  gone,  it  can  very  soon  be  restored 

*  Translator’s  Note. —  It  is  true  that  this  expression  has  another 
and  special  meaning  in  the  technical  terminology  of  Chivalry,  but  it  is 
the  nearest  English  equivalent  which  I  can  find  for  the  German  —  eitt 
Bescholtener. 


HONOR 


67 


in  its  entirety  if  you  are  only  quick  enough  in  having 
recourse  to  the  one  universal  remedy  —  a  duel.  But  if 
the  aggressor  does  not  belong  to  the  classes  which 
recognize  the  code  of  knightly  honor,  or  has  himself 
once  offended  against  it,  there  is  a  safer  way  of  meeting 
any  attack  upon  your  honor,  whether  it  consists  in  blows, 
or  merely  in  words.  If  you  are  armed  you  can  strike 
down  your  opponent  on  the  spot,  or  perhaps  an  hour  later. 
This  will  restore  your,  honor. 

But  if  you  wish  to  avoid  such  an  extreme  step,  from 
fear  of  any  unpleasant  consequences  arising  therefrom, 
or  from  uncertainty  as  to  whether  the  aggressor  is  sub¬ 
ject  to  the  laws  of  knightly  honor  or  not,  there  is  another 
means  of  making  your  position  good,  namely,  the  <(Avan- 
tage.®  This  consists  in  returning  rudeness  with  still 
greater  rudeness;  and  if  insults  are  no  use,  you  can  try 
a  blow,  which  forms  a  sort  of  climax  in  the  redemption 
of  your  honor;  for  instance,  a  box  on  the  ear  may  be 
cured  by  a  blow  with  a  stick,  and  a  blow  with  a  stick 
by  a  thrashing  with  a  horsewhip;  and,  as  the  approved 
remedy  for  this  last,  some  people  recommend  you  to  spit 
at  your  opponent.*  If  all  these  means  are  of  no  avail, 
you  must  not  shrink  from  drawing  blood.  And  the 
reason  for  these  methods  of  wiping  out  insult  is,  in  this 
code,  as  follows: 

(4.)  To  receive  an  insult  is  disgraceful;  to  give  one, 
honorable.  Let  me  take  an  example.  My  opponent  has 
truth,  right,  and  reason  on  his  side.  Very  well.  I  insult 
him.  Thereupon  right  and  honor  leave  him  and  come 
to  me,  and,  for  the  time  being,  he  has  lost  them  —  until 
he  gets  them  back,  not  by  the  exercise  of  right  or  reason, 
but  by  shooting  and  sticking  me.  Accordingly,  rudeness 
is  a  quality  which,  in  point  of  honor,  is  a  substitute  for 
any  other  and  outweighs  them  all.  The  rudest  is  always 
right.  What  more  do  you  want  ?  However  stupid,  bad, 
or  wicked  a  man  may  have  been,  if  he  is  only  rude  into 
the  bargain,  he  condones  and  legitimizes  all  his  faults. 
If  in  any  discussion  or  conversation,  another  man  shows 

*  Translator’s  Note. —  It  must  be  remembered  that  Schopen¬ 
hauer  is  here  describing  or  perhaps  caricaturing,  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  German  aristocracy  of  half  a  century  ago. 


68 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


more  knowledge,  greater  love  of  truth,  a  sounder  judg¬ 
ment,  better  understanding  than  we,  or  generally  exhibits 
intellectual  qualities  which  cast  ours  into  the  shade,  we 
can  at  once  annul  his  superiority  and  our  own  shallow¬ 
ness,  and  in  our  turn  be  superior  to  him,  by  being  in¬ 
sulting  and  offensive.  For  rudeness  is  better  than  any 
argument;  it  totally  eclipses  intellect.  If  our  opponent 
does  not  care  for  our  mode  of  attack,  and'  will  not 
answer  still  more  rudely,  so  as  to  plunge  us  into  the 
ignoble  rivalry  of  the  “Avantage,®  we  are  the  victors 
and  honor  is  on  our  side.  Truth,  knowledge,  under¬ 
standing,  intellect,  wit,  must  beat  a  retreat  and  leave  the 
field  to  this  almighty  insolence. 

Honorable  people  immediately  make  a  show  of  mount¬ 
ing  their  war  horse,  if  anyone  utters  an  opinion  adverse 
to  theirs,  or  shows  more  intelligence  than  they  can 
muster;  and  if  in  any  controversy  they  are  at  a  loss  for 
a  reply,  they  look  about  for  some  weapon  of  rudeness, 
which  will  serve  as  well  and  come  readier  to  hand;  so 
they  retire  masters  of  the  position.  It  must  now  be 
obvious  that  people  are  quite  right  in  applauding  this 
principle  of  honor  as  having  ennobled  the  tone  of  society. 
This  principle  springs  from  another,  which  forms  the 
heart  and  soul  of  the  entire  code. 

(5.)  Fifthly,  the  code  implies  that  the  highest  court  to 
which  a  man  can  appeal  in  any  differences  he  may  have 
with  another  on  a  point  of  honor  is  the  court  of  phys¬ 
ical  force,  that  is,  of  brutality.  Every  piece  of  rudeness 
is,  strictly  speaking,  an  appeal  to  brutality;  for  it  is  a 
declaration  that  intellectual  strength  and  moral  insight 
are  incompetent  to  decide,  and  that  the  battle  must  be 
fought  out  by  physical  force  —  a  struggle  which,  in  the 
case  of  man,  whom  Franklin  defines  as  a  tool-making 
animal,  is  decided  by  the  weapons  peculiar  to  the 
species;  and  the  decision  is  irrevocable.  This  is  the 
well-known  principle  of  the  right  of  might  —  irony, 
of  course,  like  the  wit  of  a  fool,  a  parallel  phrase. 
The  honor  of  a  knight  may  be  called  the  glory  of  might. 

(6.)  Lastly,  if,  as  we  saw  above,  civic  honor  is  very 
scrupulous  in  the  matter  of  meurn  and  tuum ,  paying 
great  respect  to  obligations  and  a  promise  once  made, 


HONOR 


69 


the  code  we  are  here  discussing  displays,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  noblest  liberality.  There  is  only  one  word 
which  may  not  be  broken,  the  word  of  honor  —  upon 
my  honor,  as  people  say  —  the  presumption  being,  of 
course,  that  every  other  form  of  promise  may  be  broken. 
Nay,  if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  it  is  easy  to  break 
even  one’s  word  of  honor,  and  still  remain  honorable  — 
again  by  adopting  that  universal  remedy,  the  duel,  and 
fighting  with  those  who  maintain  that  we  pledged  our 
word.  Further,  there  is  one  debt,  and  one  alone,  that 
under  no  circumstances  must  be  left  unpaid  —  a  gam¬ 
bling  debt,  which  has  accordingly  been  called  a  debt  of 
honor.  In  all  other  kinds  of  debt  you  may  cheat  Jews 
and  Christians  as  much  as  you  like;  and  your  knightly 
honor  remains  without  a  stain. 

The  unprejudiced  reader  will  see  at  once  that  such  a 
strange,  savage,  and  ridiculous  code  of  honor  as  this  has 
no  foundation  in  human  nature,  nor  any  warrant  in  a 
healthy  view  of  human  affairs.  The  extremely  narrow 
sphere  of  its  operation  serves  only  to  intensify  the  feel¬ 
ing,  which  is  exclusively  confined  to  Europe  since  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  then  only  to  the  upper  classes,  officers, 
and  soldiers,  and  people  who  imitate  them.  Neither 
Greeks  nor  Romans  knew  anything  of  this  code  of 
honor  or  of  its  principles;  nor  the  highly  civilized  na¬ 
tions  of  Asia,  ancient  or  modern.  Among  them  no  other 
kind  of  honor  is  recognized  but  that  which  I  discussed 
first,  in  virtue  of  which  a  man  is  what  he  shows  himself 
to  be  by  his  actions,  not  what  any  wagging  tongue  is 
pleased  to  say  of  him.  They  thought  that  what  a  man 
said  or  did  might  perhaps  affect  his  own  honor,  but  not 
any  other  man’s.  To  them,  a  blow  was  but  a  blow  —  and 
any  horse  or  donkey  could  give  a  harder  one  —  a  blow 
which  under  certain  circumstances  might  make  a  man 
angry  and  demand  immediate  vengeance;  but  it  had 
nothing  to  do  with  honor.  No  one  kept  account  of 
blows  or  insulting  words,  or  of  the  satisfaction  which  was 
demanded  or  omitted  to  be  demanded.  Yet  in  personal 
bravery  and  contempt  of  death,  the  ancients  were  cer¬ 
tainly  not  inferior  to  the  nations  of  Christian  Europe. 
The  Greeks  and  Romans  were  thorough  heroes,  if  you 


7° 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


like;  but  they  knew  nothing  about  point  d'hoiineur.  If 
they  had  any  idea  of  a  duel,  it  was  totally  unconnected 
with  the  life  of  the  nobles;  it  was  merely  the  exhibition 
of  mercenary  gladiators,  slaves  devoted  to  slaughter,  con¬ 
demned  criminals,  who,  alternately  with  wild  beasts, 
were  set  to  butcher  one  another  to  make  a  Roman  holi¬ 
day.  When  Christianity  was  introduced,  gladiatorial 
shows  were  done  away  with,  and  their  place  taken,  in 
Christian  times,  by  the  duel,  which  was  a  way  of  settling 
difficulties  by  the  Judgment  of  God.  If  the  gladiatorial 
fight  was  a  cruel  sacrifice  to  the  prevailing  desire  for 
great  spectacles,  dueling  is  a  cruel  sacrifice  to  existing 
prejudices  —  a  sacrifice,  not  of  criminals,  slaves,  and  pris¬ 
oners,  but  of  the  noble  and  the  free.* 

There  are  a  great  many  traits  in  the  character  of  the 
ancients  which  show  that  they  were  entirely  free  from 
these  prejudices.  When,  for  instance,  Marius  was  sum¬ 
moned  to  a  duel  by  a  Teutonic  chief,  he  returned  answer 
to  the  effect  that,  if  the  chief  were  tired  of  his  life,  he 
might  go  and  hang  himself;  at  the  same  time  he  offered 
him  a  veteran  gladiator  for  a  round  or  two.  Plutarch 
relates  in  his  life  of  Themistocles  that  Eurybiades,  who 
was  in  command  of  the  fleet,  once  raised  his  stick  to 
strike  him;  whereupon  Themistocles,  instead  of  drawing 
his  sword,  simply  said:  Strike,  but  hear  me.  How  sorry 
the  reader  must  be,  if  he  is  an  honorable  man,  to  find 
that  we  have  no  information  that  the  Athenian  officers 
refused  in  a  body  to  serve  any  longer  under  Themistocles, 
if  he  acted  like  that!  There  is  a  modern  French  writer 
who  declares  that  if  anyone  considers  Demosthenes  a 
man  of  honor,  his  ignorance  will  excite  a  smile  of  pity ;  and 
that  Cicero  was  not  a  man  of  honor  either!  In  a  certain 
passage  in  Plato’s  “Laws,®  the  philosopher  speaks  at 
length  of  aU(a  or  assault,  showing  us  clearly  enough 
that  the  ancients  had  no  notion  of  any  feeling  of  honor 
in  connection  with  such  matters.  Socrates’s  frequent  dis¬ 
cussions  were  often  followed  by  his  being  severely  han¬ 
dled,  and  he  bore  it  all  mildly.  Once,  for  instance,  when 

*  Translator’s  Note. — These  and  other  remarks  on  dueling  will  no 
doubt  wear  a  belated  look  to  English  readers;  but  they  are  hardly 
yet  antiquated  for  most  parts  of  the  Continent. 


HONOR 


7i 


somebody  kicked  him,  the  patience  with  which  he  took 
the  insult  surprised  one  of  his  friends.  Do  you  think, 
said  Socrates,  that  if  an  ass  happened  to  kick  me, 
I  should  resent  it  ?  On  another  occasion,  when  he  was 
asked,  Has  not  that  fellow  abused  and  insulted  you  ? 
No,  was  his  answer,  what  he  says  is  not  addressed  to 
me.  Stobseus  has  preserved  a  long  passage  from  Mu- 
sonius,  from  which  we  can  see  how  the  ancients  treated 
insults.  They  knew  no  other  form  of  satisfaction  than 
that  which  the  law  provided,  and  wise  people  despised 
even  this.  If  a  Greek  received  a  box  on  the  ear,  he 
could  get  satisfaction  by  the  aid  of  the  law;  as  is  evident 
from  Plato’s  (<  Gorgias, w  where  Socrates’s  opinion  may  be 
found.  The  same  thing  may  be  seen  in  the  account 
given  by  Gellius  of  one  Lucius  Veratius,  who  had  the 
audacity  to  give  some  Roman  citizens  whom  he  met  on 
the  road  a  box  on  the  ear,  without  any  provocation  what¬ 
ever;  but  to  avoid  any  ulterior  consequences,  he  told  a 
slave  to  bring  a  bag  of  small  money,  and  on  the  spot 
paid  the  trivial  legal  penalty  to  the  men  whom  he  had 
astonished  by  his  conduct. 

Crates,  the  celebrated  Cynic  philosopher,  got  such  a 
box  on  the  ear  from  Nicodromus,  the  musician,  that  his 
face  swelled  up  and  became  black  and  blue;  whereupon 
he  put  a  label  on  his  forehead,  with  the  inscription, 
Nicodromus  fecit ,  which  brought  much  disgrace  to  the 
fluteplayer  who  had  committed  such  a  piece  of  brutality 
upon  the  man  whom  all  Athens  honored  as  a  household 
god.  And  in  a  letter  to  Melesippus,  Diogenes  of  Sinope 
tells  us  that  he  got  a  beating  from  the  drunken  sons  of 
the  Athenians;  but  he  adds  that  it  was  a  matter  of  no 
importance.  And  Seneca  devotes  the  last  few  chapters 
of  his  <(  De  Constantia  ®  to  a  lengthy  discussion  on  insult  — 
contumelia;  in  order  to  show  that  a  wise  man  will  take 
no  notice  of  it.  In  Chapter  XIV.  he  says,  What  shall 

A  WISE  MAN  DO,  IF  HE  IS  GIVEN  A  BLOW  ?  WHAT  CaTO  DID, 

WHEN  SOME  ONE  STRUCK  HIM  ON  THE  MOUTH; - NOT  FIRE 

UP  OR  AVENGE  THE  INSULT,  OR  EVEN  RETURN  THE  BLOW, 
BUT  SIMPLY  IGNORE  IT. 

Yes,  you  say,  but  these  men  were  philosophers.  —  And 
you  are  fools,  eh  ?  Precisely. 


72 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


It  is  clear  that  the  whole  code  of  knightly  honor 
was  utterly  unknown  to  the  ancients;  for  the  simple  rea¬ 
son  that  they  always  took  a  natural  and  unprejudiced 
view  of  human  affairs,  and  did  not  allow  themselves  to 
be  influenced  by  any  such  vicious  and  abominable  folly. 
A  blow  in  the  face  was  to  them  a  blow  and  nothing 
more,  a  trivial  physical  injury;  whereas  the  moderns 
make  a  catastrophe  out  of  it,  a  theme  for  a  tragedy;  as, 
for  instance,  in  the  <(  Cid  ®  of  Corneille,  or  in  a  recent  Ger¬ 
man  comedy  of  middle-class  life,  called  (<  The  Power  of 
Circumstance,®  which  should  have  been  entitled  “The 
Power  of  Prejudice. ®  If  a  member  of  the  National  As¬ 
sembly  at  Paris  got  a  blow  on  the  ear,  it  would  resound 
from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other.  The  examples 
which  I  have  given  of  the  way  in  which  such  an  occur¬ 
rence  would  have  been  treated  in  classic  times  may  not 
suit  the  ideas  of  honorable  people,  so  let  me  recom¬ 
mend  to  their  notice,  as  a  kind  of  antidote,  the  story  of 
Monsieur  Desglands  in  Diderot’s  masterpiece,  ®  Jacques  le 
Fataliste.  ®  It  is  an  excellent  specimen  of  modern  knightly 
honor,  which,  no  doubt,  they  will  find  enjoyable  and  edi¬ 
fying.  * 

From  what  I  have  said  it  must  be  quite  evident  that 
the  principle  of  knightly  honor  has  no  essential  and 
spontaneous  origin  in  human  nature.  It  is  an  artificial 
product,  and  its  source  is  not  hard  to  find.  Its  existence 
obviously  dates  from  the  time  when  people  used  their 
fists  more  than  their  heads,  when  priestcraft  had  en¬ 
chained  the  human  intellect,  the  much  bepraised  Middle 
Age,  with  its  system  of  chivalry.  That  was  the  time 
when  people  let  the  Almighty  not  only  care  for  them 

*  Translator’s  Note. —  The  story  to  which  Schopenhauer  here 
refers  is  briefly  as  follows:  Two  gentlemen,  one  of  whom  was  named 
Desglands,  were  paying  court  to  the  same  lady.  As  they  sat  at  table 
side  by  side,  with  the  lady  opposite,  Desglands  did  his  best  to  charm 
her  with  his  conversation;  but  she  pretended  not  to  hear  him,  and  kept 
looking  at  his  rival.  In  the  agony  of  jealousy,  Desglands,  as  he  was 
holding  a  fresh  egg  in  his  hand,  involuntarily  crushed  it ;  the  shell  broke 
and  its  contents  bespattered  his  rival’s  face.  Seeing  him  raise  his  hand, 
Desglands  seized  it  and  whispered:  Sir,  I  take  it  as  given.  The 
next  day  Desglands  appeared  with  a  large  piece  of  black  sticking  plaster 
upon  his  right  cheek.  In  the  duel  which  followed,  Desglands  severely 


HONOR 


73 


but  judge  for  them  too ;  when  difficult  cases  were  decided 
by  an  ordeal,  a  Judgment  of  God;  which,  with  few 
exceptions,  meant  a  duel,  not  only  where  nobles  were 
concerned,  but  in  the  case  of  ordinary  citizens  as  well. 
There  is  a  neat  illustration  of  this  in  Shakespeare’s  Henry 
VI.  *  Every  judicial  sentence  was  subject  to  an  appeal 
to  arms  —  a  court,  as  it  were,  of  higher  instance,  namely, 
the  Judgment  of  God:  and  this  really  meant  that  phys¬ 
ical  strength  and  activity,  that  is,  our  animal  nature, 
usurped  the  place  of  reason  on  the  judgment  seat,  decid¬ 
ing  in  matters  of  right  and  wrong,  not  by  what  a  man 
had  done,  but  by  the  force  with  which  he  was  opposed, 
the  same  system,  in  fact,  as  prevails  to-day  under  the 
principles  of  knightly  honor.  If  anyone  doubts  that 
such  is  really  the  origin  of  our  modern  duel,  let  him 
read  an  excellent  work  by  J.  B.  Millingen,  ®  The  His¬ 
tory  of  Duelling.  ®  f  Nay,  you  may  still  find  among  the 
supporters  of  the  system,  —  who,  by  the  way,  are  not 
usually  the  most  educated  or  thoughtful  of  men, —  some- 
who  look  upon  the  result  of  a  duel  as  really  constituting 
a  divine  judgment  in  the  matter  in  dispute;  no  doubt 
in  consequence  of  the  traditional  feeling  on  the  subject. 

But  leaving  aside  the  question  of  origin,  it  must  now 
be  clear  to  us  that  the  main  tendency  of  the  principle  is 
to  use  physical  menace  for  the  purpose  of  extorting  an 
appearance  of  respect  which  is  deemed  too  difficult  or 
superfluous  to  acquire  in  reality ;  a  proceeding  which 
comes  to  much  the  same  thing  as  if  you  were  to  prove 
the  warmth  of  your  room  by  holding  your  hand  on  the 
thermometer  and  so  make  it  rise.  In  fact,  the  kernel  of 
the  matter  is  this :  whereas  civic  honor  aims  at  peaceable 
intercourse,  and  consists  in  the  opinion  of  other  people 
that  we  deserve  full  confidence,  because  we  pay  uncon¬ 
ditional  respect  to  their  rights,  knightly  honor  on  the  other 

wounded  his  rival;  upon  which  he  reduced  the  size  of  the  plaster. 
When  his  rival  recovered,  they  had  another  duel ;  Desglands  drew  blood 
again,  and  again  made  his  plaster  a  little  smaller ;  and  so  on  for  five  or 
six  times.  After  every  duel  Desglands’s  plaster  grew  less  and  less,  until 
at  last  his  rival  was  killed. 

*  Part  II. ,  Act  2,  Sc.  3. 

f  Published  in  1849. 


74 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


hand,  lays  down  that  we  are  to  be  feared,  as  being-  de¬ 
termined  at  all  costs  to  maintain  our  own. 

As  not  much  reliance  can  be  placed  upon  human  integ¬ 
rity,  the  principle  that  it  is  more  essential  to  arouse  fear 
than  to  invite  confidence  would  not,  perhaps,  be  a  false 
one,  if  we  were  living  in  a  state  of  nature,  where  every 
man  would  have  to  protect  himself  and  directly  maintain 
his  own  rights.  But  in  civilized  life,  where  the  State 
undertakes  the  protection  of  our  person  and  property, 
the  principle  is  no  longer  applicable:  it  stands,  like  the 
castles  and  watch-towers  of  the  age  when  might  was  right, 
a  useless  and  forlorn  object,  amidst  well-tilled  fields  and 
frequented  roads  or  even  railways. 

Accordingly,  the  application  of  knightly  honor,  which 
still  recognizes  this  principle,  is  confined  to  those  small 
cases  of  personal  assault  which  meet  with  but  slight  pun¬ 
ishment  at  the  hands  of  the  law,  or  even  none  at  all,  for 
de  minimis  non ,  mere  trivial  wrongs,  committed  sometimes 
only  in  jest.  The  consequence  of  this  limited  application 
of  the  principle  is  that  it  has  forced  itself  into  an  exag¬ 
gerated  respect  for  the  value  of  the  person,  a  respect 
utterly  alien  to  the  nature,  constitution  or  destiny  of  man 
—  which  it  has  elevated  into  a  species  of  sanctity:  and  as 
it  considers  that  the  State  has  imposed  a  very  insufficient 
penalty  on  the  commission  of  such  trivial  injuries,  it  takes 
upon  itself  to  punish  them  by  attacking  the  aggressor 
in  life  or  limb.  The  whole  thing  manifestly  rests  upon 
an  excessive  degree  of  arrogant  pride,  which,  completely 
forgetting  what  man  really  is,  claims  that  he  shall  be  ab¬ 
solutely  free  from  all  attack  or  even  censure.  Those  who 
determine  to  carry  out  this  principle  by  main  force,  and 
announce,  as  their  rule  of  action,  whoever  insults  or 
strikes  me  shall  die  !  ought  for  their  pains  to  be  ban¬ 
ished  the  country.* 

*  Knightly  honor  is  the  child  of  pride  and  folly,  and  it  is  need, 
not  pride,  which  is  the  heritage  of  the  human  race.  It  is  a  very 
remarkable  fact  that  this  extreme  form  of  pride  should  be  found  ex¬ 
clusively  among  the  adherents  of  the  religion  which  teaches  the 
deepest  humility.  Still,  this  pride  must  not  be  put  down  to  religion, 
but,  rather,  to  the  feudal  system,  which  made  every  nobleman  a  petty 
sovereign  who  recognized  no  human  judge,  and  learned  to  regard  his 
person  as  sacred  and  inviolable,  and  any  attack  upon  it,  or  any  blow 


HONOR 


75 


As  a  palliative  to  this  rash  arrogance,  people  are  in 
the  habit  of  giving  way  on  everything.  If  two  intrepid 
persons  meet,  and  neither  will  give  way,  the  slightest 
difference  may  cause  a  shower  of  abuse,  then  fisticuffs, 
and,  finally,  a  fatal  blow;  so  that  it  would  really  be  a 
more  decorous  proceeding  to  omit  the  intermediate  steps 
and  appeal  to  arms  at  once.  An  appeal  to  arms  has  its 
own  special  formalities;  and  these  have  developed  into  a 
rigid  and  precise  system  of  laws  and  regulations,  together 
forming  the  most  solemn  farce  there  is,  a  regular  temple 
of  honor  dedicated  to  folly!  For  if  two  intrepid  persons 
dispute  over  some  trivial  matter  ( more  important  affairs 
are  dealt  with  by  law),  one  of  them,  the  cleverer  of  the 
two,  will  of  course  yield;  and  they  will  agree  to  differ. 
That  this  is  so  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  common  people, 
—  or,  rather,  the  numerous  classes  of  the  community  who 
do  not  acknowledge  the  principle  of  knightly  honor,  let 
any  dispute  run  its  natural  course.  Among  these  classes 
homicide  is  a  hundredfold  rarer  than  among  those  —  and 
they  amount,  perhaps,  in  all,  to  hardly  one  in  a  thousand, 
who  pay  homage  to  the  principle :  and  even  blows  are  of 
no  very  frequent  occurrence. 

Then  it  has  been  said  that  the  manners  and  tone  of 
good  society  are  ultimately  based  upon  this  principle  of 
honor,  which,  with  its  system  of  duels,  is  made  out  to  be  a 
bulwark  against  the  assaults  of  savagery  and  rudeness. 
But  Athens,  Corinth  and  Rome  could  assuredly  boast  of 
good,  nay  excellent  society,  and  manners  and  tone  of  a 
high  order,  without  any  support  from  the  bogey  of  a 
knightly  honor.  It  is  true  that  women  did  not  occupy 
that  prominent  place  in  ancient  society  which  they  hold 

or  insulting  word,  as  an  offense  punishable  by  death.  The  principle 
of  knightly  honor  and  of  the  duel  was  at  first  confined  to  the  nobles, 
and,  later  on,  also  to  officers  in  the  army,  who,  enjoying  a  kind  of 
off-and-on  relationship  with  the  upper  classes,  though  they  were  never 
incorporated  with  them,  were  anxious  not  to  be  behind  them.  It  is 
true  that  duels  were  the  product  of  the  old  ordeals ;  but  the  latter  are 
not  the  foundation,  but  rather  the  consequence  and  application  of  the 
principle  of  honor:  the  man  who  recognized  no  human  judge  appealed 
to  the  divine.  Ordeals,  however,  are  not  peculiar  to  Christendom: 
they  may  be  found  in  great  force  among  the  Hindoos,  especially  of 
ancient  times;  and  there  are  traces  of  them  even  now. 


76 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


now,  when  conversation  has  taken  on  a  frivolous  and 
trifling  character,  to  the  exclusion  of  that  weighty  dis¬ 
course  which  distinguished  the  ancients.  This  change 
has  certainly  contributed  a  great  deal  to  bring  about  the 
tendency  which  is  observable  in  good  society  nowadays, 
to  prefer  personal  courage  to  the  possession  of  any  other 
quality.  The  fact  is  that  personal  courage  is  really  a  very 
subordinate  virtue,  merely  the  distinguishing  mark  of  a 
subaltern,  a  virtue,  indeed,  in  which  we  are  surpassed  by 
the  lower  animals ;  or  else  you  would  not  hear  people  say, 
as  brave  as  a  lion.  Far  from  being  the  pillar  of  society, 
knightly  honor  affords  a  sure  asylum,  in  general  for  dis¬ 
honesty  and  wickedness,  and  also  for  small  incivilities, 
want  of  consideration  and  unmannerliness.  Rude  behavior 
is  often  passed  over  in  silence  because  no  one  cares  to 
risk  his  neck  in  correcting  it. 

After  what  I  have  said,  it  will  not  appear  strange  that 
the  dueling  system  is  carried  to  the  highest  pitch  of 
sanguinary  zeal  precisely  in  that  nation  whose  political 
and  financial  records  show  that  they  are  not  too  honor¬ 
able.  What  that  nation  is  like  in  its  private  and  domes¬ 
tic  life,  is  a  question  which  may  be  best  put  to  those 
who  are  experienced  in  the  matter.  Their  urbanity  and 
social  culture  have  long  been  conspicuous  by  their 
absence. 

There  is  no  truth,  then,  in  such  pretexts.  It  can  be 
urged  with  more  justice  that  as,  when  you  snarl  at  a 
dog,  he  snarls  in  return,  and  when  you  pet  him,  he 
fawns;  so  it  lies  in  the  nature  of  men  to  return  hostility 
by  hostility,  and  to  be  embittered  and  irritated  at  any 
signs  of  depreciatory  treatment  or  hatred:  and,  as  Cicero 

says,  THERE  IS  SOMETHING  SO  PENETRATING  IN  THE  SHAFT 
OF  ENVY  THAT  EVEN  MEN  OF  WISDOM  AND  WORTH  FIND  ITS 
wound  a  painful  one;  and  nowhere  in  the  world,  except, 
perhaps,  in  a  few  religious  sects,  is  an  insult  or  a  blow 
taken  with  equanimity.  And  yet  a  natural  view  of 
either  would  in  no  case  demand  anything  more  than  a 
requital  proportionate  to  the  offense,  and  would  never 
go  the  length  of  assigning  death  as  the  proper  penalty 
for  anyone  who  accuses  another  of  lying  or  stupidity  or 
cowardice.  The  old  German  theory  of  blood  for  a  blow 


HONOR 


77 


is  a  revolting  superstition  of  the  age  of  chivalry.  And 
in  any  case  the  return  or  requital  of  an  insult  is  dictated 
by  anger,  and  not  by  any  such  obligation  of  honor  and  duty 
as  the  advocates  of  chivalry  seek  to  attach  to  it.  The  fact 
is  that,  the  greater  the  truth,  the  greater  the  slander ;  and 
it  is  clear  that  the  slightest  hint  of  some  real  delinquency 
will  give  much  greater  offense  than  a  most  terrible 
accusation  which  is  perfectly  baseless :  so  that  a  man  who 
is  quite  sure  that  he  has  done  nothing  to  deserve  a 
reproach  may  treat  it  with  contempt  and  will  be  safe  in 
doing  so.  The  theory  of  honor  demands  that  he  shall 
show  a  susceptibility  which  he  does  not  possess,  and  take 
bloody  vengeance  for  insults  which  he  cannot  feel.  A 
man  must  himself  have  but  a  poor  opinion  of  his  own 
worth  who  hastens  to  prevent  the  utterance  of  an  unfa¬ 
vorable  opinion  by  giving  his  enemy  a  black  eye. 

True  appreciation  of  his  own  value  will  make  a  man 
really  indifferent  to  insult;  but  if  he  cannot  help  resent¬ 
ing  it,  a  little  shrewdness  and  culture  will  enable  him 
to  save  appearances  and  dissemble  his  anger.  If  we 
could  only  get  rid  of  this  superstition  about  honor  —  the 
idea,  I  mean,  that  it  disappears  when  you  are  insulted, 
and  can  be  restored  by  returning  the  insult ;  if  we  could 
only  stop  people  from  thinking  that  wrong,  brutality  and 
insolence  can  be  legalized  by  expressing  readiness  to  give 
satisfaction,  that  is,  to  fight  in  defense  of  it,  we  should 
all  soon  come  to  the  general  opinion  that  insult  and  de¬ 
preciation  are  like  a  battle  in  which  the  loser  wins;  and 
that,  as  Vincenzo  Monti  says,  abuse  resembles  a  church 
procession,  because  it  always  returns  to  the  point  from 
which  it  set  out.  If  we  could  only  get  people  to  look 
upon  insult  in  this  light  we  should  no  longer  have  to  say 
something  rude  in  order  to  prove  that  we  are  in  the 
right.  Now,  unfortunately,  if  we  want  to  take  a  serious 
view  of  any  question,  we  have  first  of  all  to  consider 
whether  it  will  not  give  offense  in  some  way  or  other  to 
the  dullard,  who  generally  shows  alarm  and  resentment 
at  the  merest  sign  of  intelligence :  and  it  may  easily  hap¬ 
pen  that  the  head  which  contains  the  intelligent  view  has 
to  be  pitted  against  the  noddle  which  is  empty  of  every¬ 
thing  but  narrowness  and  stupidity.  If  all  this  were  done 


78 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


away  with,  intellectual  superiority  could  take  the  leading 
place  in  society  which  is  its  due  —  a  place  now  occupied, 
though  people  do  not  like  to  confess  it,  by  excellence  of 
physique,  mere  fighting  pluck,  in  fact;  and  the  natural 
effect  of  such  a  change  would  be  that  the  best  kind  of 
people  would  have  one  reason  the  less  for  withdrawing 
from  society.  This  would  pave  the  way  for  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  real  courtesy  and  genuinely  good  society,  such 
as  undoubtedly  existed  in  Athens,  Corinth  and  Rome.  If 
anyone  wants  to  see  a  good  example  of  what  I  mean,  I 
should  like  him  to  read  Xenophon’s  (<  Banquet. w 

The  last  argument  in  defense  of  knightly  honor  no 
doubt  is,  that,  but  for  its  existence,  the  world  —  awful 
thought!  would  be  a  regular  bear-garden.  To  which  I 
may  briefly  reply  that  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  peo¬ 
ple  out  of  a  thousand  who  do  not  recognize  the  code, 
have  often  given  and  received  a  blow  without  any  fatal 
consequences;  whereas  among  the  adherents  of  the  code 
a  blow  usually  means  death  to  one  of  the  parties.  But 
let  me  examine  this  argument  more  closely. 

I  have  often  tried  to  find  some  tenable  or,  at  any  rate, 
plausible  basis  —  other  than  a  merely  conventional  one 
—  some  positive  reasons,  that  is  to  say,  for  the  rooted 
conviction  which  a  portion  of  mankind  entertains,  that  a 
blow  is  a  very  dreadful  thing;  but  I  have  looked  for  it  in 
vain,  either  in  the  animal  or  in  the  rational  side  of  human 
nature.  A  blow  is,  and  always  will  be,  a  trivial  physical 
injury  which  one  man  can  do  to  another;  proving,  thereby, 
nothing  more  than  his  superiority  in  strength  or  skill,  or 
that  his  enemy  was  off  his  guard.  Analysis  will  carry  us 
no  further.  The  same  knight  who  regards  a  blow  from 
the  human  hand  as  the  greatest  of  evils,  if  he  gets  a  ten 
times  harder  blow  from  his  horse,  will  give  you  the 
assurance,  as  he  limps  away  in  suppressed  pain,  that  it  is 
a  matter  of  no  consequence  whatever.  So  I  have  come  to 
think  that  it  is  the  human  hand  which  is  at  the  bottom  of 
the  mischief.  And  yet  in  a  battle  the  knight  may  get  cuts 
and  thrusts  from  the  same  hand,  and  still  assure  you  that 
his  wounds  are  not  worth  mentioning.  Now,  I  hear  that 
a  blow  from  the  flat  of  a  sword  is  not  by  any  means  so 
bad  as  a  blow  with  a  stick;  and  that,  a  short  time  ago, 


HONOR 


79 


cadets  were  liable  to  be  punished  by  the  one  but  not  the 
other,  and  that  the  very  greatest  honor  of  all  is  the 
accolade.  This  is  all  the  psychological  or  moral  basis 
that  I  can  find ;  and  so  there  is  nothing  left  me  but  to  pro¬ 
nounce  the  whole  thing  an  antiquated  superstition  that  has 
taken  deep  root,  and  one  more  of  the  many  examples 
which  show  the  force  of  tradition.  My  view  is  confirmed 
by  the  well-known  fact  that  in  China  a  beating  with  a 
bamboo  is  a  very  frequent  punishment  for  the  common 
people,  and  even  for  officials  of  every  class,  which  shows 
that  human  nature,  even  in  a  highly  civilized  state,  does 
not  run  in  the  same  groove  here  and  in  China. 

On  the  contrary,  an  unprejudiced  view  of  human  nature 
shows  that  it  is  just  as  natural  for  man  to  beat  as  it  is 
for  savage  animals  to  bite  and  rend  in  pieces,  or  for 
horned  beasts  to  butt  or  push.  Man  may  be  said  to  be  the 
animal  that  beats.  Hence  it  is  revolting  to  our  sense  of 
the  fitness  of  things  to  hear,  as  we  sometimes  do,  that 
one  man  has  bitten  another;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a 
natural  and  everyday  occurrence  for  him  to  get  blows  cr 
give  them.  It  is  intelligible  enough  that,  as  we  become 
educated,  we  are  glad  to  dispense  with  blows  by  a  system 
of  mutual  restraint.  But  it  is  a  cruel  thing  to  compel  a 
nation  or  a  single  class  to  regard  a  blow  as  an  awful 
misfortune  which  must  have  death  and  murder  for  its 
consequences.  There  are  too  many  genuine  evils  in  the 
world  to  allow  of  our  increasing  them  by  imaginary  mis¬ 
fortunes,  which  bring  real  ones  in  their  train ;  and  yet  this 
is  the  precise  effect  of  the  superstition,  which  thus  proves 
itself  at  once  stupid  and  malign. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  wise  of  governments  and  legis¬ 
lative  bodies  to  promote  any  such  folly  by  attempting  to 
do  away  with  flogging  as  a  punishment  in  civil  or  mili¬ 
tary  life.  Their  idea  is  that  they  are  acting  in  the  inter¬ 
ests  of  humanity;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  they  are  doing 
just  the  opposite;  for  the  abolition  of  flogging  will  serve 
only  to  strengthen  this  inhuman  and  abominable  super¬ 
stition,  to  which  so  many  sacrifices  have  already  been 
made.  For  all  offenses,  except  the  worst,  a  beating  is 
the  obvious  and  therefore  the  natural  penalty ;  and  a  man 
who  will  not  listen  to  reason  will  yield  to  blows.  It 


8o 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


seems  to  me  right  and  proper  to  administer  corporal 
punishment  to  the  man  who  possesses  nothing  and  there¬ 
fore  cannot  be  fined,  or  cannot  be  put  in  prison  because 
his  master’s  interests  would  suffer  by  the  loss  of  his 
services.  There  are  really  no  arguments  against  it;  only 
mere  talk  about  the  dignity  of  man  —  talk  which  pro¬ 
ceeds,  not  from  any  clear  notions  on  the  subject,  but 
from  the  pernicious  superstition  I  have  been  describing. 
That  it  is  a  superstition  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the 
whole  business  is  proved  by  an  almost  laughable  exam¬ 
ple.  Not  long  ago,  in  the  military  discipline  of  many 
countries,  the  cat  was  replaced  by  the  stick.  In  either 
case  the  object  was  to  produce  physical  pain;  but  the 
latter  method  involved  no  disgrace,  and  was  not  deroga¬ 
tory  to  honor. 

By  promoting  this  superstition,  the  State  is  playing 
into  the  hands  of  the  principle  of  knightly  honor,  and 
therefore  of  the  duel;  while  at  the  same  time  it  is  try¬ 
ing,  or  at  any  rate  it  pretends  that  it  is  trying,  to 
abolish  the  duel  by  legislative  enactment.  As  a  natural 
consequence  we  find  that  this  fragment  of  the  theory 
that  might  is  right,  which  has  come  down  to  us  from 
the  most  savage  days  of  the  Middle  Age,  has  still  in 
this  nineteenth  century  a  good  deal  of  life  left  in  it  — 
more  shame  to  us!  It  is  high  time  for  the  principle  to 
be  driven  out  bag  and  baggage.  Nowadays,'  no  one  is 
allowed  to  set  dogs  or  cocks  to  fight  each  other,  at  any 
rate,  in  England  it  is  a  penal  offense,  but  men  are  plunged 
into  deadly  strife,  against  their  will,  by  the  operation  of 
this  ridiculous,  superstitious  and  absurd  principle,  which 
imposes  upon  us  the  obligation,  as  its  narrow-minded  sup¬ 
porters  and  advocates  declare,  of  fighting  with  one  another 
like  gladiators,  for  any  little  trifle.  Let  me  recommend 
our  purists  to  adopt  the  expression  baiting,  instead  of 
duel,  which  probably  comes  to  us,  not  from  the  Latin 
duellmn ,  but  from  the  Spanish  duelo , — meaning  suffer¬ 
ing,  nuisance,  annoyance. 

In  any  case,  we  may  well  laugh  at  the  pedantic  ex¬ 
cess  to  which  this  foolish  system  has  been  carried.  It 
is  really  revolting  that  this  principle,  with  its  absurd 
code  can  form  a  power  within  the  State  —  imperium  in 


HONOR 


81 


imperio  —  a  power  too  easily  put  in  motion,  which,  recog¬ 
nizing  no  right  but  might,  tyrannizes  over  the  classes 
which  come  within  its  range,  by  keeping  up  a  sort  of 
inquisition,  before  which  any  one  may  be  haled  on  the 
most  flimsy  pretext,  and  there  and  then  be  tried  on  an 
issue  of  life  and  death  between  himself  and  his  oppo¬ 
nent.  This  is  the  lurking  place  from  which  every  rascal, 
if  he  only  belongs  to  the  classes  in  question,  may  menace 
and  even  exterminate  the  noblest  and  best  of  men,  who, 
as  such,  must  of  course  be  an  object  of  hatred  to  him. 
Our  system  of  justice  and  police  protection  has  made  it 
impossible  in  these  days  for  any  scoundrel  in  the  street 
to  attack  us  with  —  Your  money  or  your  life!  and  com¬ 
mon  sense  ought  now  to  be  able  to  prevent  rogues  dis¬ 
turbing  the  peaceable  intercourse  of  society  by  coming 
at  us  with  —  Your  honor  or  your  life!  An  end  should 
be  put  to  the  burden  which  weighs  upon  the  higher 
classes  —  the  burden,  I  mean,  of  having  to  be  ready  every 
moment  to  expose  life  and  limb  to  the  mercy  of  anyone 
who  takes  it  into  his  rascally  head  to  be  coarse,  rude, 
foolish  or  malicious.  It  is  perfectly  atrocious  that  a  pair 
of  silly,  passionate  boys  should  be  wounded,  maimed  or 
even  killed,  simply  because  they  have  had  a  few  words. 

The  strength  of  this  tyrannical  power  within  the  State, 
and  the  force  of  the  superstition,  may  be  measured  by 
the  fact  that  people  who  are  prevented  from  restoring 
their  knightly  honor  by  the  superior  or  inferior  rank  of 
their  aggressor,  or  anything  else  that  puts  the  persons  on 
a  different  level,  often  come  to  a  tragic-comic  end  by 
committing  suicide  in  sheer  despair.  You  may  generally 
know  a  thing  to  be  false  and  ridiculous  by  finding  that, 
if  it  is  carried  to  its  logical  conclusion,  it  results  in  a 
contradiction;  and  ^iere,  too,  we  have  a  very  glaring  ab¬ 
surdity.  For  an  officer  is  forbidden  to  take  part  in  a 
duel;  but  if  he  is  challenged  and  declines  to  come  out, 
he  is  punished  by  being  dismissed  the  service. 

As  I  am  on  the  matter,  let  me  be  more  frank  still. 
The  important  distinction  which  is  often  insisted  upon, 
between  killing  your  enemy  in  a  fair  fight  with  equal 
weapons,  and  lying  in  ambush  for  him,  is  entirely  a 
corollary  of  the  fact  that  the  power  within  the  State,  of 
6 


82 


THE  WISDOM  OP  LIFE 


which  I  have  spoken,  recognizes  no  other  right  than 
might,  that  is,  the  right  of  the  stronger,  and  appeals  to 
a  Judgment  of  God  as  the  basis  of  the  whole  code.  For 
to  kill  a  man  in  a  fair  fight,  is  to  prove  that  you  are 
superior  to  him  in  strength  or  skill;  and  to  justify  the 
deed,  you  must  assume  that  the  right  of  the  stronger 

IS  REALLY  A  RIGHT. 

But  the  truth  is  that,  if  my  opponent  is  unable  to  de¬ 
fend  himself,  it  gives  me  the  possibility,  but  not  by  any 
means  the  right,  of  killing  him.  The  right,  the  moral 
justification,  must  depend  entirely  upon  the  motives 
which  I  have  for  taking  his  life.  Even  supposing  that  I 
have  sufficient  motive  for  taking  a  man’s  life,  there  is 
no  reason  why  I  should  make  his  death  depend  upon 
whether  I  can  shoot  or  fence  better  than  he.  In  such  a 
case,  it  is  immaterial  in  what  way  I  kill  him,  whether  I 
attack  him  from  the  front  or  the  rear.  From  a  moral 
point  of  view  the  right  of  the  stronger  is  no  more  con¬ 
vincing  than  the  right  of  the  more  skillful ;  and  it  is  skill 
which  is  employed  if  you  murder  a  man  treacherously. 
Might  and  skill  are  in  this  case  equally  right:  in  a  duel, 
for  instance,  both  the  one  and  the  other  come  into  play;  for 
a  feint  is  only  another  name  for  treachery.  If  I  con¬ 
sider  myself  morally  justified  in  taking  a  man’s  life,  it 
is  stupid  of  me  to  try  first  of  all  whether  he  can  shoot 
or  fence  better  than  I ;  as,  if  he  can,  he  will  not  only 
have  wronged  me,  but  have  taken  my  life  into  the 
bargain. 

It  is  Rousseau’s  opinion  that  the  proper  way  to  avenge 
an  insult  is,  not  to  fight  a  duel  with  your  aggressor,  but 
to  assassinate  him, —  an  opinion,  however,  which  he  is 
cautious  enough  only  just  to  indicate  in  a  mysterious 
note  to  one  of  the  books  of  his  w  Emile.  *  This  shows 
the  philosopher  so  completely  under  the  influence  of  the 
mediaeval  superstitution  of  knightly  honor  that  he  con¬ 
siders  it  justifiable  to  murder  a  man  who  accuses  you  of 
lying;  while  he  must  have  known  that  every  man,  and 
himself  especially,  deserves  to  have  the  lie  given  him 
times  without  number. 

The  prejudice  which  justifies  the  killing  of  your  adver¬ 
sary,  so  long  as  it  is  done  in  an  open  contest  and  with 


HONOR 


83 


equal  weapons,  obviously  looks  upon  might  as  really 
right,  and  a  duel  as  the  interference  of  God.  The  Italian 
who,  in  a  fit  of  rage,  falls  upon  his  aggressor  wherever 
he  finds  him,  and  dispatches  him  without  any  ceremony, 
acts,  at  any  rate,  consistently  and  naturally:  he  may  be 
cleverer,  but  he  is  not  worse,  than  the  duelist.  If  you 
say,  I  am  justified  in  killing  my  adversary  in  a  duel, 
because  he  is  at  the  moment  doing  his  best  to  kill  me, 
I  can  reply  that  it  is  your  challenge  which  has  placed 
him  under  the  necessity  of  defending  himself;  and  that 
by  mutually  putting  it  on  the  ground  of  self-defense,  the 
combatants  are  seeking  a  plausible  pretext  for  committing 
murder.  I  should  rather  justify  the  deed  by  the  legal 
maxim  Volenti  non  fit  injuria;  because  the  parties  mutually 
agree  to  set  their  life  upon  the  issue.  This  argument 
may,  however,  be  rebutted  by  showing  that  the  injured 
party  is  not  injured  volens;  because  it  is  this  tyrannical 
principle  of  knightly  honor,  with  its  absurd  code,  which 
forcibly  drags  one  at  least  of  the  combatants  before  a 
bloody  inquisition. 

I  have  been  rather  prolix  on  the  subject  of  knightly 
honor,  but  I  had  good  reasons  for  being  so,  because  the 
Augean  stable  of  moral  and  intellectual  enormity  in  this 
world  can  be  cleaned  out  only  with  the  besom  of  phi¬ 
losophy.  There  are  two  things  which  more  than  all  else 
serve  to  make  the  social  arrangements  of  modern  life 
compare  unfavorably  with  those  of  antiquity,  by  giving 
our  age  a  gloomy,  dark,  and  sinister  aspect,  from  which 
antiquity,  fresh,  natural,  and,  as  it  were,  in  the  morning 
of  life,  is  completely  free;  I  mean  modern  honor  and 
modern  disease, — par  nobile  fratruin! — which  have  com¬ 
bined  to  poison  all  the  relations  of  life,  whether  public 
or  private.  The  second  of  this  noble  pair  extends  its 
influence  much  farther  than  at  first  appears  to  be  the 
case,  as  being  not  merely  a  physical,  but  also  a  moral 
disease.  From  the  time  that  poisoned  arrows  have  been 
found  in  Cupid’s  quiver,  an  estranging,  hostile,  nay, 
devilish  element  has  entered  into  the  relations  of  men 
and  women,  like  a  sinster  thread  of  fear  and  mistrust  in 
the  warp  and  woof  of  their  intercourse;  indirectly  shak¬ 
ing  the  foundations  of  human  fellowship,  and  so  more 


84 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


or  less  affecting  the  whole  tenor  of  existence.  But  it 
would  be  beside  my  present  purpose  to  pursue  the  sub¬ 
ject  further. 

An  influence  analogous  to  this,  though  working  on  other 
lines,  is  exerted  by  the  principle  of  knightly  honor, 
—  that  solemn  farce,  unknown  to  the  ancient  world, 
which  makes  modern  society  stiff,  gloomy,  and  timid, 
forcing  us  to  keep  to  the  strictest  watch  on  every  word 
that  falls.  Nor  is  this  all.  The  principle  is  a  universal 
Minotaur;  and  the  goodly  company  of  the  sons  of  noble 
houses  which  it  demands  in  yearly  tribute,  comes,  not 
from  one  country  alone,  as  of  old,  but  from  every  land 
in  Europe.  It  is  high  time  to  make  a  regular  attack 
upon  this  foolish  system;  and  this  is  what  I  am  trying 
to  do  now.  Would  that  these  two  monsters  of  the  mod¬ 
ern  world  might  disappear  before  the  end  of  the  century! 

Let  us  hope  that  medicine  may  be  able  to  find  some 
means  of  preventing  the  one,  and  that,  by  clearing  our 
ideas,  philosophy  may  put  an  end  to  the  other;  for  it  is 
only  by  clearing  our  ideas  that  the  evil  can  be  eradicated. 
Governments  have  tried  to  do  so  by  legislation,  and  failed. 

Still,  if  they  are  really  concerned  to  suppress  the  duel¬ 
ing  system;  and  if  the  small  success  that  has  attended 
their  efforts  is  really  due  only  to  their  inability  to  cope 
with  the  evil,  I  do  not  mind  proposing  a  law  the  success 
of  which  I  am  prepared  to  guarantee.  It  will  involve 
no  sanguinary  measures,  and  can  be  put  into  operation 
without  recourse  either  to  the  scaffold  or  the  gallows,  or 
to  imprisonment  for  life.  It  is  a  small  homoeopathic 
pilule ,  with  no  serious  after  effects.  If  any  man  send  or 
accept  a  challenge,  let  the  corporal  take  him  before  the 
guardhouse,  and  there  give  him,  in  broad  daylight, 
twelve  strokes  with  a  stick  a  la  Chinoise ;  a  non-commis¬ 
sioned  officer  or  a  private  to  receive  six.  If  a  duel  has 
actually  taken  place,  the  usual  criminal  proceedings  should 
be  instituted. 

A  person  with  knightly  notions  might,  perhaps,  object 
that,  if  such  a  punishment  were  carried  out,  a  man  of 
honor  would  possibly  shoot  himself;  to  which  I  should 
answer  that  it  is  better  for  a  fool  like  that  to  shoot  him¬ 
self  rather  than  other  people.  However,  I  know  very 


FAME 


85 


well  that  governments  are  not  really  in  earnest  about 
putting  down  dueling.  Civil  officials,  and  much  more  so, 
officers  in  the  army  (except  those  in  the  highest  posi¬ 
tions),  are  paid  most  inadequately  for  the  services  they 
perform ;  and  the  deficiency  is  made  up  by  honor,  which 
is  represented  by  titles  and  orders,  and,  in  general,  by 
the  system  of  rank  and  distinction.  The  duel  is,  so  to 
speak,  a  very  serviceable  extra-horse  for  people  of  rank: 
so  they  are  trained  in  the  knowledge  of  it  at  the  uni¬ 
versities.  The  accidents  which  happen  to  those  who  use 
it  make  up  in  blood  for  the  deficiency  of  the  pay. 

Just  to  complete  the  discussion,  let  me  here  mention 
the  subject  of  national  honor.  It  is  the  honor  of  a  nation 
as  a  unit  in  the  aggregate  of  nations.  And  as  there  is 
no  court  to  appeal  to  but  the  court  of  force ;  and  as  every 
nation  must  be  prepared  to  defend  its  own  interests,  the 
honor  of  a  nation  consists  in  establishing  the  opinion, 
not  only  that  it  may  be  trusted  (its  credit),  but  also  that 
it  is  to  be  feared.  An  attack  upon  its  rights  must  never 
be  allowed  to  pass  unheeded.  It  is  a  combination  of 
civic  and  of  knightly  honor. 


SECTION  5. - FAME. 

Under  the  heading  of  place  in  the  estimation  of  the 
world  we  have  put  Fame;  and  this  we  must  now  proceed 
to  consider. 

Fame  and  honor  are  twins;  and  twins,  too,  like  Castor 
and  Pollux,  of  whom  the  one  was  mortal  and  the  other 
was  not.  Fame  is  the  undying  brother  of  ephemeral 
honor.  I  speak,  of  course,  of  the  highest  kind  of  fame, 
that  is,  of  fame  in  the  true  and  genuine  sense  of  the 
word;  for,  to  be  sure,  there  are  many  sorts  of  fame, 
some  of  which  last  but  a  day.  Honor  is  concerned 
merely  with  such  qualities  as  everyone  may  be  expected 
to  show  under  similar  circumstances;  fame  only  with 
those  which  cannot  be  required  of  any  man.  Honor  is 
of  qualities  which  everyone  has  a  right  to  attribute  to 


86 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


himself ;  fame  only  of  those  which  should  be  left  to 
others  to  attribute.  While  our  honor  extends  as  far  as 
people  have  knowledge  of  us;  fame  runs  in  advance, 
and  makes  us  known  wherever  it  finds  its  way.  Every¬ 
one  can  make  a  claim  to  honor;  very  few  to  fame,  as 
being  attainable  only  in  virtue  of  extraordinary  achieve¬ 
ments. 

These  achievements  may  be  of  two  kinds,  either 
actions  or  works;  and  so  to  fame  there  are  two  paths 
open.  On  the  path  of  actions,  a  great  heart  is  the  chief 
recommendation;  on  that  of  works,  a  great  head.  Each 
of  the  two  paths  has  its  own  peculiar  advantages  and 
detriments;  and  the  chief  difference  between  them  is 
that  actions  are  fleeting,  while  works  remain.  The  in¬ 
fluence  of  an  action,  be  it  never  so  noble,  can  last  but 
a  short  time;  but  a  work  of  genius  is  a  living  influence, 
beneficial  and  ennobling  throughout  the  ages.  All  that 
can  remain  of  actions  is  a  memory,  and  that  becomes 
weak  and  disfigured  by  time  —  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  us,  until  at  last  it  is  extinguished  altogether;  unless, 
indeed,  history  takes  it  up,  and  presents  it,  fossilized,  to 
posterity.  Works  are  immortal  in  themselves,  and  once 
committed  to  writing,  may  live  forever.  Of  Alexander 
the  Great  we  have  but  the  name  and  the  record:  but 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  Homer  and  Horace  are  alive,  and 
as  directly  at  work  to-day  as  they  were  in  their  own 
lifetime.  The  (<  Vedas,”  and  their  (<  Upanishads,”  are  still 
with  us;  but  of  all  contemporaneous  actions  not  a  trace 
has  come  down  to  us.* 

*  Accordingly  it  is  a  poor  compliment,  though  sometimes  a  fashion¬ 
able  one,  to  try  to  pay  honor  to  a  work  by  calling  it  an  action.  For  a 
work  is  something  essentially  higher  in  its  nature.  An  action  is  always 
something  based  on  motive,  and,  therefore,  fragmentary  and  fleeting  — 
a  part,  in  fact,  of  that  Will  which  is  the  universal  and  original  element 
in  the  constitution  of  the  world.  But  a  great  and  beautiful  work  has  a 
permanent  character,  as  being  of  universal  significance,  and  sprung  from 
the  Intellect,  which  rises,  like  a  perfume,  above  the  faults  and  follies  of 
the  world  of  Will. 

The  fame  of  a  great  action  has  this  advantage,  that  it  generally  starts 
with  a  loud  explosion,  so  loud,  indeed,  as  to  be  heard  all  over  Europe, 
whereas  the  fame  of  a  great  work  is  slow  and  gradual  in  its  beginnings ; 
the  noise  it  makes  is  at  first  slight,  but  it  goes  on  growing  greater,  until 
at  last,  after  a  hundred  years  perhaps,  it  attains  its  full  force;  but  then 


FAME 


87 


Another  disadvantage  under  which  actions  labor  is 
that  they  depend  upon  chance  for  the  possibility  of 
coming  into  existence;  and  hence,  the  fame  they  win 
does  not  flow  entirely  from  their  intrinsic  value,  but  also 
from  the  circumstances  which  happened  to  lend  them 
importance  and  lustre.  Again,  the  fame  of  actions,  if,  as 
in  war,  they  are  purely  personal,  depends  upon  the  tes¬ 
timony  of  fewer  witnesses;  and  these  are  not  always 
present,  and  even  if  present,  are  not  always  just  or  un¬ 
biased  observers.  This  disadvantage,  however,  is  counter¬ 
balanced  by  the  fact  that  actions  have  the  advantage  of 
being  of  a  practical  character,  and,  therefore,  within  the 
range  of  general  human  intelligence;  so  that  when  the 
facts  have  been  correctly  reported,  justice  is  immediately 
done;  unless,  indeed,  the  motive  underlying  the  action  is 
not  at  first  properly  understood  or  appreciated.  No  action 
can  be  really  understood  apart  from  the  motive  which 
prompted  it. 

It  is  just  the  contrary  with  works.  Their  inception 
does  not  depend  upon  chance,  but  wholly  and  entirely 
upon  their  author;  and  whatever  they  are  in  and  for 
themselves,  that  they  remain  as  long  as  they  live. 
Further,  there  is  a  difficulty  in  properly  judging  them, 
which  becomes  all  the  harder,  the  higher  their  charac¬ 
ter;  often  there  are  no  persons  competent  to  understand 
the  work,  and  often  no  unbiased  or  honest  critics.  Their 
fame,  however,  does  not  depend  upon  one  judge  only; 
they  can  enter  an  appeal  to  another.  In  the  case  of 
actions,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  only  their  memory  which 
comes  down  to  posterity,  and  then  only  in  the  tradi¬ 
tional  form;  but  works  are  handed  down  themselves, 
and,  except  when  parts  of  them  have  been  lost,  in  the 
form  in  which  they  first  appeared.  In  this  case  there  is 
no  room  for  any  disfigurement  of  the  facts;  and  any 
circumstances  which  may  have  prejudiced  them  in  their 
origin,  fall  away  with  the  lapse  of  time.  Nay,  it  is  often 

it  remains,  because  the  works  remain,  for  thousands  of  years.  But  in 
the  other  case,  when  the  first  explosion  is  over,  the  noise  it  makes 
grows  less  and  less,  and  is  heard  by  fewer  and  fewer  persons;  until 
it  ends  by  the  action  having  only  a  shadowy  existence  in  the  pages  of 
history. 


88 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


only  after  the  lapse  of  time  that  the  persons  really  com¬ 
petent  to  judge  them  appear  —  exceptional  critics  sitting 
in  judgment  on  exceptional  works,  and  giving  their 
weighty  verdicts  in  succession.  These  collectively  form 
a  perfectly  just  appreciation;  and  though  there  are  cases 
where  it  has  taken  some  hundreds  of  years  to  form  it, 
no  further  lapse  of  time  is  able  to  reverse  the  verdict; 
so  secure  and  inevitable  is  the  fame  of  a  great  work. 

Whether  authors  ever  live  to  see  the  dawn  of  their 
fame  depends  upon  the  chance  of  circumstance;  and  the 
higher  and  more  important  their  works  are,  the  less  likeli¬ 
hood  there  is  of  their  doing  so.  That  was  an  incompara¬ 
bly  fine  saying  of  Seneca’s,  that  fame  follows  merit  as 
surely  as  the  body  casts  a  shadow;  sometimes  falling  in 
front,  and  sometimes  behind.  And  he  goes  on  to  remark 

that  THOUGH  THE  ENVY  OF  CONTEMPORARIES  BE  SHOWN  BY 
UNIVERSAL  SILENCE,  THERE  WILL  COME  THOSE  WHO  WILL 

judge  without  enmity  or  favor.  From  this  remark  it 
is  manifest  that  even  in  Seneca’s  age  there  were  rascals 
who  understood  the  art  of  suppressing  merit  by  mali¬ 
ciously  ignoring  its  existence,  and  of  concealing  good  work 
from  the  public  in  order  to  favor  the  bad.  It  is  an  art 
well  understood  in  our  day,  too,  manifesting  itself,  both 
then  and  now,  in  an  envious  conspiracy  of  silence. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  longer  a  man’s  fame  is  likely 
to  last,  the  later  it  will  be  in  coming;  for  all  excellent 
products  require  time  for  their  development.  The  fame 
which  lasts  to  posterity  is  like  an  oak,  of  very  slow 
growth;  and  that  which  endures  but  a  little  while,  like 
plants  which  spring  up  in  a  year  and  then  die;  while 
false  fame  is  like  a  fungus,  shooting  up  in  a  night  and 
perishing  as  soon. 

And  why  ?  For  this  reason :  the  more  a  man  belongs 
to  posterity,  in  other  words,  to  humanity  in  general,  the 
more  of  an  alien  he  is  to  his  contemporaries;  since  his 
work  is  not  meant  for  them  as  such,  but  only  for  them 
in  so  far  as  they  form  part  of  mankind  at  large;  there 
is  none  of  that  familiar  local  color  about  his  productions 
which  would  appeal  to  them;  and  so  what  he  does,  fails 
of  recognition  because  it  is  strange.  People  are  more 
likely  to  appreciate  the  man  who  serves  the  circumstances 


FAME 


89 


of  his  own  brief  hour,  or  the  temper  of  the  moment, — • 
belonging  to  it,  and  living  and  dying  with  it. 

The  general  history  of  art  and  literature  shows  that 
the  highest  achievements  of  the  human  mind  are,  as  a 
rule,  not  favorably  received  at  first ;  but  remain  in 
obscurity  until  they  win  notice  from  intelligence  of  a 
higher  order,  by  whose  influence  they  are  brought  into 
a  position  which  they  then  maintain,  in  virtue  of  the 
authority  thus  given  them. 

If  the  reason  of  this  should  be  asked,  it  will  be  found 
that  ultimately,  a  man  can  really  understand  and  appre¬ 
ciate  those  things  only  which  are  of  like  nature  with 
himself.  The  dull  person  will  like  what  is  dull,  and  the 
common  person  what  is  common ;  a  man  whose  ideas 
are  mixed  will  be  attracted  by  confusion  of  thought ; 
and  folly  will  appeal  to  him  who  has  no  brains  at  all; 
but  best  of  all,  a  man  will  like  his  own  works,  as  being 
of  a  character  thoroughly  at  one  with  himself.  This  is 
a  truth  as  old  as  Epicharmus  of  fabulous  memory  — 

daupaarov  ouSev  lari  fie  r aud’  ourut  Xeyitv 
Kal  avSdvEiv  auroTffiv  auro<3?,  /cat  Sok£iv 
KaXux;  7ZE<punivai’  /cat  yap  6  kuwv  nuvt 
KaXXtffTOV  EtflEV  tydlVETai,  KOl  fiou?  [lot 

*0vo$  S’  ovui  KaXXtaTov  S9  S’  ut. 

The  sense  of  this  passage  —  for  it  should  not  be  lost  — 
is  that  we  should  not  be  surprised  if  people  are  pleased 
with  themselves,  and  fancy  that  they  are  in  good  case; 
for  to  a  dog  the  best  thing  in  the  world  is  a  dog ;  to  an 
ox,  an  ox;  to  an  ass,  an  ass;  and  to  a  sow,  a  sow. 

The  strongest  arm  is  unavailing  to  give  impetus  to  a 
feather  weight;  for,  instead  of  speeding  on  its  way  and 
hitting  its  mark  with  effect,  it  will  soon  fall  to  the  ground, 
having  expended  what  little  energy  was  given  to  it,  and 
possessing  no  mass  of  its  own  to  be  the  vehicle  of  mo¬ 
mentum.  So  it  is  with  great  and  noble  thoughts,  nay, 
with  the  very  masterpieces  of  genius,  when  there  are 
none  but  little,  weak,  and  perverse  minds  to  appreciate 
them, —  a  fact  which  has  been  deplored  by  a  chorus  of 
the  wise  in  all  ages.  Jesus,  the  son  of  Sirach,  for  in¬ 
stance,  declares  that  He  that  telleth  a  tale  to  a  fool, 


90 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


SPEAKETH  TO  ONE  IN  SLUMBER,’  WHEN  HE  HATH  TOLD  HIS 
TALE,  HE  WILL  SAY,  WHAT  IS  THE  MATTER?  And  Hamlet 
says,  A  knavish  speech  sleeps  in  a  fool’s  ear.  And  Goethe 
is  of  the  same  opinion,  that  a  dull  ear  mocks  at  the  wisest 
word, 

Das  gliicklichste  Wort  es  wird  verhohnt, 

Wenn  der  Horer  ein  Schiefohr  ist: 

and  again,  that  we  should  not  be  discouraged  if  people 
are  stupid,  for  you  can  make  no  rings  if  you  throw  your 
stone  into  a  marsh: — 

Du  wirkest  nicht,  Alles  bleibt  so  stumpf: 

Seiguter  Dinge  ! 

Der  Stein  in  Sumpf 

Macht  keine  Ringe. 

Lichtenberg  asks:  When  a  head  and  a  book  come  into 

COLLISION,  AND  ONE  SOUNDS  HOLLOW,  IS  IT  ALWAYS  THE 

book?  And  in  another  place:  Works  like  this  are  as 
a  mirror:  if  an  ass  looks  in,  you  cannot  expect  an 
apostle  to  look  out.  We  should  do  well  to  remember 
old  Gellert’s  fine  and  touching  lament,  that  the  best  gifts 
of  all  find  the  fewest  admirers,  and  that  most  men  mis¬ 
take  the  bad  for  the  good, —  a  daily  evil  that  nothing  can 
prevent,  like  a  plague  which  no  remedy  can  cure.  There 
is  but  one  thing  to  be  done,  though  how  difficult!  the 
foolish  must  become  wise,  and  that  they  can  never  be. 
The  value  of  life  they  never  know;  they  see  with  the 
outer  eye  but  never  with  the  mind,  and  praise  the  triv¬ 
ial  because  the  good  is  strange  to  them: — 

Nie  kennen  sie  den  Werth  der  Dinge, 

Ihr  Auge  schliesst,  nicht  ihr  Verstand; 

Sie  loben  ewig  das  Geringe 
Weil  sie  das  Gute  nie  gekannt. 

To  the  intellectual  incapacity  which,  as  Goethe  says, 
fails  to  recognize  and  appreciate  the  good  which  exists, 
must  be  added  something  which  comes  into  play  every¬ 
where,  the  moral  baseness  of  mankind,  here  taking  the 
form  of  envy.  The  new  fame  that  a  man  wins  raises 
him  afresh  over  the  heads  of  his  fellows,  who  are  thus 
degraded  in  proportion.  All  conspicuous  merit  is  ob¬ 
tained  at  the  cost  of  those  who  possess  none ;  or  as 


FAME 


9i 

Goethe  has  it  in  the  <(  Westostlicher  Divan,  ®  another’s 
praise  is  one’s  own  depreciation: — 

Wenn  wir  Andern  Ehre  geben 
Miissen  wir  uns  selbst  entadeln. 

We  see,  then,  how  it  is  that  whatever  be  the  form 
which  excellence  takes,  mediocrity,  the  common  lot  of 
by  far  the  greatest  number,  is  leagued  against  it  in  a 
conspiracy  to  resist,  and  if  possible,  to  suppress  it.  The 
password  of  this  league  is  A  bas  le  nitrite.  Nay  more; 
those  who  have  done  something  themselves,  and  enjoy 
a  certain  amount  of  fame,  do  not  care  about  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  a  new  reputation,  because  its  success  is  apt  to 
throw  theirs  into  the  shade.  Hence,  Goethe  declares 
that  if  we  had  to  depend  for  our  life  upon  the  favor  of 
others,  we  would  never  have  lived  at  all ;  from  their  de¬ 
sire  to  appear  important  themselves,  people  gladly  ig¬ 
nore  our  very  existence : — 

Hatte  ich  gezaudert  zu  werden, 

Bis  man  mir’s  Leben  gegonnt, 

Ich  ware  noch  nicht  auf  Erden, 

Wie  ihr  begreifen  konnt, 

Wenn  ihr  seht,  wie  sie  sich  geberden, 

Die,  um  etwas  zu  scheinen, 

Mich  gerne  mochten  verneinen. 

Honor,  on  the  contrary,  generally  meets  with  fair  appre¬ 
ciation,  and  is  not  exposed  to  the  onslaught  of  envy;  nay, 
every  man  is  credited  with  the  possession  of  it  until  the 
contrary  is  proved.  But  fame  has  to  be  won  in  despite  of 
envy,  and  the  tribunal  which  awards  the  laurel  is  com¬ 
posed  of  judges  biased  against  the  applicant  from  the 
very  first.  Honor  is  something  which  we  are  able  and 
ready  to  share  with  everyone ;  fame  suffers  encroachment 
and  is  rendered  more  unattainable  in  proportion  as  more 
people  come  by  it.  Further,  the  difficulty  of  winning 
fame  by  any  given  work  stands  in  inverse  ratio  to  the 
number  of  people  who  are  likely  to  read  it;  and  hence  it 
is  so  much  harder  to  become  famous  as  the  author  of  a 
learned  work  than  as  a  writer  who  aspires  only  to  amuse. 
It  is  hardest  of  all  in  the  case  of  philosophical  works, 
because  the  result  at  which  they  aim  is  rather  vague,  and, 


92 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


at  the  same  time,  useless  from  a  material  point  of  view. 
They  appeal  chiefly  to  readers  who  are  working  on  the 
same  lines  themselves. 

It  is  clear,  then,  from  what  I  have  said  as  to  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  winning  fame,  that  those  who  labor,  not  out  of 
love  for  their  subject,  nor  from  pleasure  in  pursuing  it, 
but  under  the  stimulus  of  ambition,  rarely  or  never  leave 
mankind  a  legacy  of  immortal  works.  The  man  who  seeks 
to  do  what  is  good  and  genuine,  must  avoid  what  is  bad, 
and  be  ready  to  defy  the  opinions  of  the  mob,  nay,  even 
to  despise  it  and  its  misleaders.  Hence  the  truth  of 
the  remark  (especially  insisted  upon  by  Osorius  (<  de 
Gloria w)  that  fame  shuns  those  who  seek  it,  and  seeks 
those  who  shun  it;  for  the  one  adapt  themselves  to  the 
taste  of  their  contemporaries,  and  the  others  work  in 
defiance  of  it. 

But  difficult  though  it  be  to  acquire  fame,  it  is  an 
easy  thing  to  keep  it  when  once  acquired.  Here,  again, 
fame  is  in  direct  opposition  to  honor,  with  which  every¬ 
one  is  presumably  to  be  accredited.  Honor  has  not  to 
be  won;  it  must  only  not  be  lost.  But  there  lies  the 
difficulty!  For  by  a  single  unworthy  action,  it  is  gone 
irretrievably.  But  fame,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word, 
can  never  disappear;  for  the  action  or  work  by  which  it 
was  acquired  can  never  be  undone ;  and  fame  attaches  to 
its  author  even  though  he  does  nothing  to  deserve  it 
anew.  The  fame  which  vanishes,  or  is  outlived,  proves 
itself  thereby  to  have  been  spurious,  in  other  words, 
unmerited,  and  due  to  a  momentary  over-estimate  of  a 
man’s  work;  not  to  speak  of  the  kind  of  fame  which 
Hegel  enjoyed,  and  which  Lichtenberg  describes  as 

TRUMPETED  FORTH  BY  A  CLIQUE  OF  ADMIRING  UNDER-GRAD¬ 
UATES - THE  RESOUNDING  ECHO  OF  EMPTY  HEADS; - SUCH  A 

FAME  AS  WILL  MAKE  POSTERITY  SMILE  WHEN  IT  LIGHTS  UPON 
A  GROTESQUE  ARCHITECTURE  OF  WORDS,  A  FINE  NEST  WITH 
THE  BIRDS  LONG  AGO  FLOWN;  IT  WILL  KNOCK  AT  THE  DOOR 
OF  THIS  DECAYED  STRUCTURE  OF  CONVENTIONALITIES  AND 

FIND  IT  UTTERLY  EMPTY! - NOT  EVEN  A  TRACE  OF  THOUGHT 

THERE  TO  INVITE  THE  PASSER-BY. 

The  truth  is  that  fame  means  nothing  but  what  a  man 
is  in  comparison  with  others.  It  is  essentially  relative 


FAME 


93 


in  character,  and  therefore  only  indirectly  valuable;  for 
it  vanishes  the  moment  other  people  become  what  the 
famous  man  is.  Absolute  value  can  be  predicated  only 
of  what  a  man  possesses  under  any  and  all  circumstances, — 
here,  what  a  man  is  directly  and  in  himself.  It  is  the 
possession  of  a  great  heart  or  a  great  head,  and  not  the 
mere  fame  of  it,  which  is  worth  having,  and  conducive 
to  happiness.  Not  fame,  but  that  which  deserves  to  be 
famous,  is  what  a  man  should  hold  in  esteem.  This  is, 
as  it  were,  the  true  underlying  substance,  and  fame  is 
only  an  accident,  affecting  its  subject  chiefly  as  a  kind 
of  external  symptom,  which  serves  to  confirm  his  own 
opinion  of  himself.  Light  is  not  visible  unless  it  meets 
with  something  to  reflect  it;  and  talent  is  sure  of  itself 
only  when  its  fame  is  noised  abroad.  But  fame  is  not  a 
certain  symptom  of  merit;  because  you  can  have  the  one 
without  the  other;  or,  as  Lessing  nicely  puts  it,  Some 

PEOPLE  OBTAIN  FAME,  AND  OTHERS  DESERVE  IT. 

It  would  be  a  miserable  existence  which  should  make 
its  value  or  want  of  value  depend  upon  what  other  peo¬ 
ple  think;  but  such  would  be  the  life  of  a  hero  or  a 
genius  if  its  worth  consisted  in  fame,  that  is,  in  the 
applause  of  the  world.  Every  man  lives  and  exists  on 
his  own  account,  and,  therefore,  mainly  in  and  for  him¬ 
self;  and  what  he  is  and  the  whole  manner  of  his  being 
concern  himself  more  than  anyone  else;  so  if  he  is  not 
worth  much  in  this  respect,  he  cannot  be  worth  much 
otherwise.  The  idea  which  other  people  form  of  his 
existence  is  something  secondary,  derivative,  exposed  to 
all  the  chances  of  fate,  and  in  the  end  affecting  him  but 
very  indirectly.  Besides,  other  people’s  heads  are  a 
wretched  place  to  be  the  home  of  a  man’s  true  happiness 
—  a  fanciful  happiness  perhaps,  but  not  a  real  one. 

And  what  a  mixed  company  inhabits  the  Temple  of 
Universal  Fame!  —  generals,  ministers,  charlatans,  jug¬ 
glers,  dancers,  singers,  millionaires  and  Jews!  It  is  a 
temple  in  which  more  sincere  recognition,  more  genuine 
esteem,  is  given  to  the  several  excellences  of  such  folk, 
than  to  superiority  of  mind,  even  of  a  high  order,  which 
obtains  from  the  great  majority  only  a  verbal  acknowledg¬ 
ment. 


94 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


From  the  point  of  view  of  human  happiness,  fame  is, 
surely,  nothing  but  a  very  rare  and  delicate  morsel  for 
the  appetite  that  feeds  on  pride  and  vanity  —  an  appetite 
which,  however  carefully  concealed,  exists  to  an  immod¬ 
erate  degree  in  every  man,  and  is,  perhaps,  strongest  of 
all  in  those  who  set  their  hearts  on  becoming  famous  at 
any  cost.  Such  people  generally  have  to  wait  some  time 
in  uncertainty  as  to  their  own  value,  before  the  opportu¬ 
nity  comes  which  will  put  it  to  the  proof  and  let  other 
people  see  what  they  are  made  of;  but  until  then,  they 
feel  as  if  they  were  suffering  secret  injustice.* 

But,  as  I  explained  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter, 
an  unreasonable  value  is  set  upon  other  people’s  opinion, 
and  one  quite  disproportionate  to  its  real  worth.  Hobbes 
has  some  strong  remarks  on  this  subject;  and  no  doubt 
he  is  quite  right.  Mental  pleasure,  he  writes,  and  ec¬ 
stasy  OF  ANY  KIND,  ARISE  WHEN,  ON  COMPARING  OURSELVES 
WITH  OTHERS,  WE  COME  TO  THE  CONCLUSION  THAT  WE  MAY 

think  well  of  ourselves.  So  we  can  easily  understand 
the  great  value  which  is  always  attached  to  fame,  as 
worth  any  sacrifices  if  there  is  the  slightest  hope  of  at¬ 
taining  it. 

Fame  is  the  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise 
(That  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind) 

To  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days. 


And  again: 


How  hard  it  is  to  climb 

The  heights  where  Fame’s  proud  temple  shines  afar! 


We  can  thus  understand  how  it  is  that  the  vainest  peo¬ 
ple  in  the  world  are  always  talking  about  la  gloire,  with 
the  most  implicit  faith  in  it  as  a  stimulus  to  great  ac¬ 
tions  and  great  works.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
fame  is  something  secondary  in  its  character,  a  mere 
echo  or  reflection  —  as  it  were,  a  shadow  or  symptom  — 
of  merit;  and,  in  any  case,  what  excites  admiration  must 

*  Our  greatest  pleasure  consists  in  being  admired;  but  those  who 
admire  us,  even  if  they  have  every  reason  to  do  so,  are  slow  to  ex¬ 
press  their  sentiments.  Hence  he  is  the  happiest  man  who,  no 
matter  how,  manages  sincerely  to  admire  himself  —  so  long  as 
other  people  leave  him  alone. 


FAME 


95 


be  of  more  value  than  the  admiration  itself.  The  truth 
is  that  a  man  is  made  happy,  not  by  fame,  but  by  that 
which  brings  him  fame,  by  his  merits,  or  to  speak  more 
correctly,  by  the  disposition  and  capacity  from  which  his 
merits  proceed,  whether  they  be  moral  or  intellectual. 
The  best  side  of  a  man’s  nature  must  of  necessity  be 
more  important  for  him  than  for  anyone  else:  the  re¬ 
flection  of  it,  the  opinion  which  exists  in  the  heads  of 
others,  is  a  matter  that  can  affect  him  only  in  a  very 
subordinate  degree.  He  who  deserves  fame  without  get¬ 
ting  it  possesses  by  far  the  more  important  element  of 
happiness,  which  should  console  him  for  the  loss  of  the 
other.  It  is  not  that  a  man  is  thought  to  be  great  by 
masses  of  incompetent  and  often  infatuated  people,  but 
that  he  really  is  great,  which  should  move  us  to  envy  his 
position;  and  his  happiness  lies,  not  in  the  fact  that  pos¬ 
terity  will  hear  of  him,  but  that  he  is  the  creator  of 
thoughts  worthy  to  be  treasured  up  and  studied  for  hun¬ 
dreds  of  years. 

Besides,  if  a  man  has  done  this,  he  possesses  something 
which  cannot  be  wrested  from  him;  and,  unlike  fame,  it 
is  a  possession  dependent  entirely  upon  himself.  If  ad¬ 
miration  were  his  chief  aim,  there  would  be  nothing  in 
him  to  admire.  This  is  just  what  happens  in  the  case  of 
false,  that  is,  unmerited,  fame;  for  its  recipient  lives 
upon  it  without  actually  possessing  the  solid  substratum 
of  which  fame  is  the  outward  and  visible  sign.  False 
fame  must  often  put  its  possessor  out  of  conceit  with 
himself;  for  the  time  may  come  when,  in  spite  of  the 
illusions  born  of  self-love,  he  will  feel  giddy  on  the 
heights  which  he  was  never  meant  to  climb,  or  look 
upon  himself  as  spurious  coin;  and  in  the  anguish  of 
threatened  discovery  and  well-merited  degradation,  he 
will  read  the  sentence  of  posterity  on  the  foreheads  of 
the  wise  —  like  a  man  who  owes  his  property  to  a  forged 
will. 

The  truest  fame,  the  fame  that  comes  after  death,  is 
never  heard  of  by  its  recipient;  and  yet  he  is  called  a 
happy  man.  His  happiness  lay  both  in  the  possession  of 
those  great  qualities  which  won  him  fame,  and  in  the 
opportunity  that  was  granted  him  of  developing  them  — 


96 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


the  leisure  he  had  to  act  as  he  pleased,  to  dedicate  him¬ 
self  to  his  favorite  pursuits.  It  is  only  work  done  from 
the  heart  that  ever  gains  the  laurel. 

Greatness  of  soul,  or  wealth  of  intellect,  is  what  makes 
a  man  happy  —  intellect,  such  as,  when  stamped  on  its 
productions,  will  receive  the  admiration  of  centuries  to 
come, —  thoughts  which  made  him  happy  at  the  time,  and 
will  in  their  turn  be  a  source  of  study  and  delight  to  the 
noblest  minds  of  the  most  remote  posterity.  The  value 
of  posthumous  fame  lies  in  deserving  it;  and  this  is  its 
own  reward.  Whether  works  destined  to  fame  attain  it 
in  the  lifetime  of  their  author  is  a  chance  affair,  of  no 
very  great  importance.  For  the  average  man  has  no 
critical  power  of  his  own,  and  is  absolutely  incapable  of 
appreciating  the  difficulty  of  a  great  work.  People  are 
always  swayed  by  authority;  and  where  fame  is  wide¬ 
spread,  it  means  that  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  take  it 
on  faith  alone.  If  a  man  is  famed  far  and  wide  in  his 
own  lifetime,  he  will,  if  he  is  wise,  not  set  too  much 
value  upon  it,  because  it  is  no  more  than  the  echo  of  a 
few  voices,  which  the  chance  of  a  day  has  touched  in 
his  favor. 

Would  a  musician  feel  flattered  by  the  loud  applause 
of  an  audience  if  he  knew  that  they  were  nearly  all  deaf, 
and  that,  to  conceal  their  infirmity,  they  set  to  work  to 
clap  vigorously  as  soon  as  ever  they  saw  one  or  two  per¬ 
sons  applauding  ?  And  what  would  he  say  if  he  got  to 
know  that  those  one  or  two  persons  had  often  taken 
bribes  to  secure  the  loudest  applause  for  the  poorest 
player ! 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  contemporary  praise  so  seldom 
develops  into  posthumous  fame.  D’Alembert,  in  an  ex¬ 
tremely  fine  description  of  the  temple  of  literary  fame, 
remarks  that  the  sanctuary  of  the  temple  is  inhabited  by 
the  great  dead,  who  during  their  life  had  no  place  there, 
and  by  a  very  few  living  persons,  who  are  nearly  all 
ejected  on  their  death.  Let  me  remark,  in  passing,  that 
to  erect  a  monument  to  a  man  in  his  lifetime  is  as  much 
as  declaring  that  posterity  is  not  to  be  trusted  in  its 
judgment  of  him.  If  a  man  does  happen  to  see  his  own 
true  fame,  it  can  very  rarely  be  before  he  is  old,  though 


FAME 


97 


there  have  been  artists  and  musicians  who  have  been  ex¬ 
ceptions  to  this  rule,  but  very  few  philosophers.  This  is 
confirmed  by  the  portraits  of  people  celebrated  by  their 
works;  for  most  of  them  are  taken  only  after  their  sub¬ 
jects  have  attained  celebrity,  generally  depicting  them  as 
old  and  gray;  more  especially  if  philosophy  has  been  the 
work  of  their  lives.  From  a  eudaemonistic  standpoint, 
this  is  a  very  proper  arrangement;  as  fame  and  youth 
are  too  much  for  mortal  at  one  and  the  same  time.  Life 
is  such  a  poor  business  that  the  strictest  economy  must 
be  exercised  in  its  good  things.  Youth  has  enough  and  to 
spare  in  itself,  and  must  rest  content  with  what  it  has. 
But  when  the  delights  and  joys  of  life  fall  away  in  old 
age,  as  the  leaves  from  a  tree  in  autumn,  fame  buds 
forth  opportunely,  like  a  plant  that  is  green  in  winter. 
Fame  is,  as  it  were,  the  fruit  that  must  grow  all  the 
summer  before  it  can  be  enjoyed  at  Yule.  There  is  no 
greater  consolation  in  age  than  the  feeling  of  having  put 
the  whole  force  of  one’s  youth  into  works  which  still  re¬ 
main  young. 

Finally,  let  us  examine  a  little  more  closely  the  kinds  of 
fame  which  attach  to  various  intellectual  pursuits ;  for  it  is 
with  fame  of  this  sort  that  my  remarks  are  more  immedi¬ 
ately  concerned. 

I  think  it  may  be  said  broadly  that  the  intellectual 
superiority  it  denotes  consists  in  forming  theories,  that  is, 
new  combinations  of  certain  facts.  These  facts  may  be  of 
very  different  kinds ;  but  the  better  they  are  known,  and 
the  more  they  come  within  everyday  experience,  the 
greater  and  wider  will  be  the  fame  which  is  to  be  won 
by  theorizing  about  them.  For  instance,  if  the  facts 
in  question  are  numbers  or  lines  or  special  branches  of 
science,  such  as  physics,  zoology,  botany,  anatomy,  or 
corrupt  passages  in  ancient  authors,  or  undecipherable 
inscriptions,  written,  it  may  be,  in  some  unknown  alpha¬ 
bet,  or  obscure  points  in  history;  the  kind  of  fame  which 
may  be  obtained  by  correctly  manipulating  such  facts  will 
not  extend  much  beyond  those  who  make  a  study  of  them 
—  a  small  number  of  persons,  most  of  whom  live  retired 
lives  and  are  envious  of  others  who  become  famous  in 
their  special  branch  of  knowledge. 

7 


98 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


But  if  the  facts  be  such  as  are  known  to  everyone,  for 
example,  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  the  human 
mind  or  the  human  heart,  which  are  shared  by  all  alike, 
or  the  great  physical  agencies  which  are  constantly 
in  operation  before  our  eyes,  or  the  general  course  of 
natural  laws,  the  kind  of  fame  which  is  to  be  won  by 
spreading  the  light  of  a  new  and  manifestly  true  theory 
in  regard  to  them,  is  such  as  in  time  will  extend  almost 
all  over  the  civilized  world:  for  if  the  facts  be  such  as 
everyone  can  grasp,  the  theory  also  will  be  generally 
intelligible.  But  the  extent  of  the  fame  will  depend  upon 
the  difficulties  overcome;  and  the  more  generally  known 
the  facts  are,  the  harder  it  will  be  to  form  a  theory  that 
shall  be  both  new  and  true ;  because  a  great  many  heads 
will  have  been  occupied  with  them,  and  there  will  be  little 
or  no  possibility  of  saying  anything  that  has  not  been  said 
before. 

On  the  other  hand,  facts  which  are  not  accessible  to 
everybody,  and  can  be  got  at  only  after  much  difficulty 
and  labor,  nearly  always  admit  of  new  combinations  and 
theories;  so  that,  if  sound  understanding  and  judgment 
are  brought  to  bear  upon  them  —  qualities  which  do  not 
involve  very  high  intellectual  power  —  a  man  may  easily 
be  so  fortunate  as  to  light  upon  some  new  theory  in  re¬ 
gard  to  them  which  shall  be  also  true.  But  fame  won 
on  such  paths  does  not  extend  much  beyond  those  who 
possess  a  knowledge  of  the  facts  in  question.  To  solve 
problems  of  this  sort  requires,  no  doubt,  a  great  deal  of 
study  and  labor,  if  only  to  get  at  the  facts;  while  on  the 
path  where  the  greatest  and  most  widespread  fame  is  to 
be  won,  the  facts  may  be  grasped  without  any  labor  at 
all.  But  just  in  proportion  as  less  labor  is  necessary, 
more  talent  or  genius  is  required ;  and  between  such 
qualities  and  the  drudgery  of  research  no  comparison  is 
possible,  in  respect  either  of  their  intrinsic  value,  or  of 
the  estimation  in  which  they  are  held. 

And  so  people  who  feel  that  they  possess  solid  intel¬ 
lectual  capacity  and  a  sound  judgment,  and  yet  cannot 
claim  the  highest  mental  powers,  should  not  be  afraid  of 
laborious  study;  for  by  its  aid  they  may  work  themselves 


FAME 


99 


above  the  great  mob  of  humanity  who  have  the  facts 
constantly  before  their  eyes,  and  reach  those  secluded 
spots  which  are  accessible  to  learned  toil.  For  this  is  a 
sphere  where  there  are  infinitely  fewer  rivals,  and  a  man 
of  only  moderate  capacity  may  soon  find  an  opportunity 
of  proclaiming  a  theory  that  shall  be  both  new  and  true ; 
nay,  the  merit  of  his  discovery  will  partly  rest  upon  the 
difficulty  of  coming  at  the  facts.  But  applause  from 
one’s  fellow-students,  who  are  the  only  persons  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  subject,  sounds  very  faint  to  the  far-off 
multitude.  And  if  we  follow  up  this  sort  of  fame  far 
enough,  we  shall  at  last  come  to  a  point  where  facts 
very  difficult  to  get  at  are  in  themselves  sufficient  to  lay 
a  foundation  of  fame,  without  any  necessity  for  forming 
a  theory ;  —  travels,  for  instance,  in  remote  and  little- 
known  countries,  which  make  a  man  famous  by  what  he 
has  seen,  not  by  what  he  has  thought.  The  great  ad¬ 
vantage  of  this  kind  of  fame  is  that  to  relate  what  one 
has  seen,  is  much  easier  than  to  impart  one’s  thoughts, 
and  people  are  apt  to  understand  descriptions  better  than 
ideas,  reading  the  one  more  readily  than  the  other ;  for,  as 
Asmus  says, 

When  one  goes  forth  a-voyaging 

He  has  a  tale  to  tell. 

And  yet,  for  all  that,  a  personal  acquaintance  with 
celebrated  travelers  often  reminds  us  of  a  line  from 
Horace — new  scenes  do  not  always  mean  new  ideas  — 

Coelum  non  animum  mutant  qui  trans  mare  currunt. 

But  if  a  man  finds  himself  in  possession  of  great  men¬ 
tal  faculties,  such  as  alone  should  venture  on  the  solution 
of  the  hardest  of  all  problems  —  those  which  concern 
nature  as  a  whole  and  humanity  in  its  widest  range,  he 
will  do  well  to  extend  his  view  equally  in  all  directions, 
without  ever  straying  too  far  amid  the  intricacies  of 
various  bypaths,  or  invading  regions  little  known ;  in 
other  words,  without  occupying  himself  with  special 
branches  of  knowledge,  to  say  nothing  of  their  petty 
details.  There  is  no  necessity  for  him  to  seek  out  sub¬ 
jects  difficult  of  access,  in  order  to  escape  a  crowd  of 


IOO 


THE  WISDOM  OF  LIFE 


rivals;  the  common  objects  of  life  will  give  him  material 
for  new  theories  at  once  serious  and  true;  and  the  serv¬ 
ice  he  renders  will  be  appreciated  by  all  those  —  and 
they  form  a  great  part  of  mankind  —  who  know  the  facts 
of  which  he  treats.  What  a  vast  distinction  there  is  be¬ 
tween  students  of  physics,  chemistry,  anatomy,  miner- 
alogy,  zoology,  philology,  history,  and  the  men  who  deal 
with  the  great  facts  of  human  life,  the  poet,  and  the 
philosopher! 


SKETCH  OF  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF 
THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL. 


Descartes  is  rightly  deemed  the  father  of  modern  phi¬ 
losophy,  and  this  in  a  special,  as  well  as  a  general  sense, 
inasmuch  as  he  placed  the  reason  on  its  own  feet  by 
teaching  men  to  use  their  own  brains,  in  the  place  of 
which  the  Bible  had  previously  served  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Aristotle  on  the  other.  But  in  a  more  special  and  a 
narrower  sense  he  was  this  also;  since  he  was  the  first 
to  bring  the  problem  upon  which  philosophy  has  mainly 
turned  to  consciousness  —  the  problem  of  the  Ideal  and 
Real  —  i.  e. ,  the  question  as  to  what  in  our  knowledge  is 
objective,  and  what  is  subjective;  in  other  words,  what 
might  be  ascribed  by  us  to  other  things,  and  what  we 
must  ascribe  to  ourselves.  Images  do  not  arise  in  our 
brain  as  it  were  arbitrarily  from  within,  nor  do  they  pro¬ 
ceed  from  the  connection  of  our  own  thoughts  —  hence 
they  must  spring  from  an  external  cause.  But  these  images 
are  immediately  known  to  us  —  they  are  given.  Now 
what  relation  do  they  have  to  things  existing  completely 
separate  from,  and  independent  of  us,  and  which  are  in 
some  way  the  cause  of  these  images  ?  Have  we  any  cer¬ 
tainty  at  all  that  such  things  exist  ?  or  even  if  this  be  so, 
that  the  images  afford  us  any  clue  to  their  nature  ?  This 
is  the  problem,  and  in  consequence  the  main  endeavor 
of  philosophers  has  been  for  the  two  past  hundred  years 
to  separate  by  a  correctly-drawn  line  of  cleavage  —  the 
Ideal,  i.  e.,  that  which  belongs  solely  to  our  knowledge 
as  such,  from  the  Real,  i.  e.,  that  which  exists  independ¬ 
ently  of  it,  and  thus  to  determine  the  relation  of  each 
to  the  other. 

Certainly  neither  the  philosophers  of  antiquity,  nor  yet 
the  schoolmen  seem  to  have  arrived  at  a  clear  conscious¬ 
ness  of  this  fundamental  problem  of  philosophy,  although 
we  find  a  trace  of  it,  as  Idealism,  and  even  as  the  doctrine 
of  the  Ideality  of  time,  in  Plotinus,  in  Enneas  III., 

'  (ioi) 


102 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


Lib.  VII.,  cx.,  where  he  teaches  that  the  soul  has  made 
the  world  by  its  transition  from  eternity  into  time.  He 
there  says,  for  instance,  ob  yap  tj?  aOTob  tootoo  too  Tiavroi 
To™?,  9]  (pux-rj.  ( Neque  datur  alius  hujus  universi  locus , 
quam  anima )  also  dec  de  ob%  i^wdev  tjj9  <po%rj<i  Aapflaveiv  tov 
gpovov  (baize  p  obd\  tov  alaiva  eye:  eftat  too  ovto<s.  ( OpOTtet  autem 
nequaquam  extra  animam  tempus  accipere ,  quemadmodum 
neque  aeternitatem  ibi  extra  id, ,  quod  ens  appellatur .) 
Here  it  will  be  seen  we  have  a  distinct  statement  even 
of  Kant’s  ideality  of  time.  And  in  the  following  chap¬ 
ter  ooto<s  6  ftiog  tov  %povov  yevva'  did  k  a)  elprjTac  apa  T&de  ra» 
izavTi  yeyovlvai ,  bTi  *1>o'/t)  aoTov  peTa  Tobde  too  itavTos  iyivvyaev. 

( Haec  vita  nostra  tempus  gignit:  quamobrem  dictum 
est,  tempus  simul  cum  hoc  universo  factum  esse:  quia 
anima  tempus  una  cum  hoc  universo  progenuit.)  Never¬ 
theless,  this  problem  clearly  recognized,  became  the 
specially  characteristic  subject  of  modern  philosophy 
after  the  necessary  reflection  had  been  awakened  in  Des¬ 
cartes,  who  was  impressed  with  the  truth  that  we  are 
immediately  limited  to  our  own  consciousness,  and  that 
the  world  is  given  us  merely  as  presentment  ( Vi or- 
stellung.)  With  his  well-known  dubito ,  cogito,  ergo  sum , 
he  sought  to  accentuate  the  sole  certainty  of  the  sub¬ 
jective  consciousness  in  contradistinction  to  the  problem¬ 
atical  nature  of  everything  else,  and  to  declare  the  great 
truth  that  the  only  real,  and  unconditionally  given,  is 
self-consciousness.  Strictly  considered,  his  celebrated 
proposition  is  the  equivalent  of  that  from  which  I  started. 
<(  The  world  is  my  presentment.  *  The  only  difference  is, 
that  his  proposition  accentuates  the  immediateness  of  the 
subject;  mine,  the  mediateness  of  the  object.  Both 
propositions  express  the  same  thing  from  two  sides. 
They  are  the  (<  reverses  ®  of  each  other,  standing  in  much 
the  same  relation  as  the  law  of  inertia  and  that  of 
causality,  as  expounded  by  me  in  the  preface  to  my 
(<  Ethics.  *  ( The  two  ground  problems  of  <(  Ethics,  * 

treated  in  two  academical  prize  essays  by  Dr.  Arthur 
Schopenhauer.  Frankfurt-am-Main,  1841,  p.  xxiv;  2d 
edition,  Liepzig,  i860,  p.  xxiv.)  Certainly,  since  his  time, 
Descartes’s  proposition  has  been  often  enough  repeated, 
owing  to  the  mere  feeling  of  its  importance,  and  with- 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


103 


out  a  clear  understanding  of  its  special  sense  and  purport. 
(See  Descartes’s  “Meditationes,”  Med.  ii.  p.  14.)  He  it 
was,  then,  who  discovered  the  chasm  which  lies  between 
the  Subjective  or  Ideal,  and  the  Objective  or  Real.  This 
insight  he  clothed  in  the  form  of  a  doubt  as  to  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  the  outer  world;  but  by  his  inadequate  solu¬ 
tion  of  this  doubt  —  to  wit,  that  the  good  God  would 
not  deceive  us  —  he  showed  how  deep  and  difficult  to 
solve  the  problem  was.  Meantime,  this  scruple  had  been 
introduced  into  philosophy  by  him,  and  could  not  fail  to 
continue  to  work  disturbingly  till  its  final  settlement. 
The  consciousness  that  without  thorough  knowledge  and 
understanding  of  the  distinction  which  had  been  dis¬ 
covered,  no  certain  and  sufficient  system  would  be  pos¬ 
sible,  has  been  from  that  time  ever  present,  and  the 
question  could  no  longer  be  shirked. 

In  order  to  solve  it,  Malebranche  invented  his  system 
of  occasional  causes.  He  grasped  the  problem  in  its 
whole  range  more  clearly,  seriously,  and  deeply  than 
Descartes  (<(  Recherche  de  la  Verite,"  Livre  III.  secoyide 
par  tie).  The  latter  had  accepted  the  reality  of  the  outer 
world  on  the  credit  of  God;  and  it  was  curious  enough 
that  while  the  other  theistic  philosophers  sought  to 
demonstrate  the  existence  of  God  from  the  existence  of 
the  world,  Descartes,  on  the  contrary,  determines  the 
existence  of  the  world  from  the  existence  and  trust¬ 
worthiness  of  God  —  it  is  the  cosmological  demonstration 
turned  round.  Even  here,  going  a  step  farther,  Male¬ 
branche  teaches  that  we  see  all  things  immediately  in 
God.  This  is  certainly  to  explain  an  unknown  by  a  still 
more  unknown.  Moreover,  according  to  him,  we  not  only 
see  all  things  in  God,  but  God  is  the  sole  activity  therein, 
so  that  physical  causes  are  only  apparently  such  —  they 
are  mere  causes  occasionnelles.  ( <(  Rech.  d.  1.  Ver.,” 
Livre  VI.,  seconde  par  tie,  ch.  iii.)  We  have  here,  therefore, 
in  all  essentials,  the  Pantheism  of  Spinoza,  who  seems  to 
have  learned  more  from  Malebranche  than  he  did  from 
Descartes. 

Altogether,  one  might  wonder  that  Pantheism  did  not 
gain  a  complete  victory  over  Theism  even  in  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century,  seeing  that  the  most  original,  the  most 


104 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


beautiful,  and  the  most  thorough-going  European  pre¬ 
sentations  of  it  (for  assuredly  none  of  them  will  bear 
comparison  with  the  Upanishads  of  the  Vedas)  all  saw 
the  light  in  that  age,  to  wit,  Bruno,  Malebranche,  Spi¬ 
noza,  and  Scotus  Erigena,  the  last  of  whom,  after  he  had 
remained  for  many  centuries  lost  and  forgotten,  was  re¬ 
covered  at  Oxford,  and  in  1681,  four  years,  that  is,  after 
Spinoza’s  death,  for  the  first  time  saw  the  light  in  print. 
This  seems  to  prove  that  the  insight  of  individuals  can¬ 
not  produce  its  effect,  so  long  as  the  spirit  of  the  time 
is  unripe  for  its  acceptance,  for  in  our  days  Pantheism, 
although  only  presented  in  the  eclectic  and  confused 
rechauffe  of  Schelling,  has  become  the  dominant  mode 
of  thought  with  scholars,  and  even  with  persons  of  ordinary 
culture.  This  is  because  Kant  had  preceded,  and  with  his 
overthrow  of  theistic  dogmatism,  had  prepared  the  ground, 
in  consequence  of  which  the  spirit  of  the  time  was  ready 
for  it,  as  a  plowed  field  is  ready  for  the  seed.  In  the 
seventeenth  century,  on  the  other  hand,  philosophy  for¬ 
sook  this  path,  and  arrived  accordingly  on  the  one  side, 
at  Locke,  for  whom  Bacon  and  Hobbes  had  prepared  the 
way,  and  on  the  other  at  Christian  Wolff,  through  Lieb- 
nitz.  These  two  were  dominant  therefore  in  the  eight¬ 
eenth  century,  especially  in  Germany,  although  latterly 
only  in  so  far  as  they  had  been  absorbed  by  syncretistic 
eclecticism. 

The  profound  conception  of  Malebranche  gave  the  im¬ 
mediate  occasion  to  Leibnitz’s  system  of  harmonia  praesta- 
bilita ,  the  widely  extended  fame  and  high  consideration 
of  which  in  his  time,  affords  a  confirmation  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  absurd  which  makes  the  easiest  success  in 
the  world.  Although  I  cannot  pretend  to  have  a  clear 
notion  of  the  monads  of  Leibnitz,  which  are  at  once 
mathematical  points,  corporate  atoms,  and  souls,  yet  it 
seems  to  me  unquestionable  that  such  an  assumption 
once  decided  upon  might  serve  to  spare  us  all  further 
hypothesis  for  the  explanation  of  the  connection  between 
Ideal  and  Real,  and  to  settle  the  question  in  the  sense 
that  both  are  already  fully  identified  in  the  monads  (for 
which  reason,  in  our  days,  Schelling,  as  originator  of  the 
system  of  identity,  has  displayed  a  particular  relish  for 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


105 


it).  Nevertheless,  it  did  not  please  the  eminent  philos¬ 
ophizing  mathematician,  polyhistor,  and  politician  to  use 
it  for  the  purpose ;  but  he  saw  fit  to  specially  formulate  a 
pre-established  harmony  to  this  end.  The  latter  furnishes 
us  with  two  totally  distinct  worlds,  each  incapable  of 
acting  in  any  way  on  the  other  (<(Principia  Philos,®  §  84, 
and  (<  Examen  du  Sentiment  du  P.  Malebranche,®  p.  500, 
sq.  of  the  <(  CEuvres  de  Leibnitz, ®  published  P.  Kaspe), 
each  the  entirely  superfluous  duplicate  of  the  other,  but 
both  of  which,  once  for  all  there,  run  exactly  parallel, 
and  keep  time  with  each  other  to  a  hair;  the  originator 
of  both  having  from  the  first  established  the  exactest 
harmony  between  them,  so  that  they  proceed  thence¬ 
forward  in  the  most  beautiful  manner.  We  may  observe, 
by  the  way,  that  the  hartnonia  praestabilita  may  perhaps 
be  best  made  comprehensible  by  a  comparison  with  the 
stage,  where  very  often  the  influxus  physicus  is  only 
apparently  present,  since  cause  and  effect  are  connected 
simply  by  means  of  a  pre-established  harmony  of  the 
stage  manager;  as,  for  instance,  when  the  one  shoots  and 
the  other  falls  a  tempo.  Leibnitz  has  presented  the  mat¬ 
ter  in  its  monstrous  absurdity  in  the  crassest  manner, 
and  in  brief,  §§  62,  63  of  his  <(  Theodicy. ®  And  yet  with 
the  whole  dogma  he  does  not  even  have  the  merit  of 
originality,  since  Spinoza  had  already  clearly  enough  pre¬ 
sented  the  harmonia  praestabilita  in  the  second  part  of  his 
<(  Ethics,®  i.  e.,  in  the  6th  and  7th  propositions,  together 
with  their  corollaries,  and  again  in  P.  V.,  prop.  1,  after 
he  had  in  the  5th  proposition  of  P.  II.,  stated  in  his  own 
manner  the  so  very  cognate  doctrine  of  Malebranche, 
that  we  see  all  in  God. 

Malebranche  is,  therefore,  alone  the  originator  of  this 
whole  line  of  thought  which  Spinoza  as  well  as  Leibnitz, 
each  in  his  own  way,  has  utilized  and  modified.  Leibnitz, 
indeed,  might  very  well  have  dispensed  with  it  altogether, 
since  he  has  already  forsaken  the  simple  fact  which  con¬ 
stitutes  the  problem,  i.  e.,  that  the  world  is  given  us 
immediately  as  our  presentment,  in  order  to  substitute 
for  it  the  dogma  of  a  corporeal  world  and  a  spiritual 
world,  between  which  no  bridge  is  possible;  at  the  same 
time  interweaving  the  question  of  the  relation  of  our 


io6 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


presentment  to  the  things  in  themselves  with  that  of  the 
possibility  of  the  motion  of  the  body  by  the  will,  and 
then  solving  both  together  by  means  of  his  harmonia 
praestabilita.  (<(Systeme  nouveau  de  la  Nature,®  in  Leib¬ 
nitz;  (<  Opp.  ed.  Edmann,®  p.  123;  Brucker,  <(  Hist.  Ph.,® 
tom.  iv.,  p.  ii.  425.)  The  monstrous  absurdity  of  his 
assumption  was  placed  in  the  clearest  light  even  by  his 
own  contemporaries,  particularly  by  Bayle,  who  showed 
the  consequences  which  flowed  from  it  ( see  also  in  Leib¬ 
nitz’s  smaller  writings,  translated  by  Huth,  anno  1740, 
the  observation  on  page  79,  where  even  Leibnitz  himself 
is  obliged  to  expose  the  preposterous  consequences  of  his 
own  doctrine).  Nevertheless,  the  very  absurdity  of  the 
assumption  to  which  a  thinking  head  was  driven  by  the 
problem  in  hand,  proves  the  magnitude,  the  difficulty, 
the  perplexity  of  it,  and  how  little  it  can  be  got  rid  of, 
and  the  knot  be  cut,  by  its  mere  repudiation,  such  as  has 
been  ventured  upon  in  our  days. 

Spinoza  again  starts  immediately  from  Descartes,  hence, 
at  first  in  his  character  of  Cartesian  he  even  retains  the 
dualism  of  his  teacher  and  assumes  accordingly  a  sub¬ 
stantia  cogitans  and  a  substantia  extensa ,  the  one  as  sub¬ 
ject  the  other  as  object  of  knowledge.  But  later,  when 
he  stood  on  his  own  feet,  he  found  that  both  were  one 
and  the  same  substance  viewed  from  different  sides;  on 
the  one  side  conceived  as  a  siibstantia  extensa  on  the  oth¬ 
er  as  a  substantia  cogitans.  This  is  as  much  as  to  say 
that  the  distinction  of  the  thinking  and  extended,  or  soul 
and  body,  is  an  unfounded  one  and  therefore  inadmissi¬ 
ble  ;  so  that  nothing  more  ought  to  be  said  about  it.  He 
nevertheless  retains  it,  since  he  is  untiring  in  repeating 
that  both  are  one.  To  this  he  adds,  as  it  were  by  a 
mere  sic  etiam  that  Modus  extensionis  et  idea  illius  modi  una 
eademque  est  res  ((<Eth.®  P.  II.,  prop.  7,  schol.);  by  which 
he  means  that  our  presentment  of  bodies  and  these  bodies 
themselves  are  one  and  the  same.  The  sic  etiam ,  how¬ 
ever,  is  an  insufficient  transition  to  this,  since  it  does  not 
by  any  means  follow  from  the  fact  that  the  distinction 
between  mind  and  body  or  between  the  presenting  and 
the  presented  is  unfounded,  that  the  distinction  between 
our  presentment  and  an  objective  and  real,  existing  out- 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


107 


side  the  same  —  the  main  problem,  that  is,  that  was  started 
by  Descartes  —  is  also  unfounded.  The  presenting  and 
the  presented  may  be  perfectly  well  homogeneous,  and 
yet  still  the  question  remains  how  I  am  with  certainty 
to  infer  from  presentments  in  my  head  as  to  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  beings  in  themselves  that  are  independent  of  the 
former.  The  difficulty  is  not  that  on  which  Leibnitz 
(e.  g.,  “Theodic,®  Part  I.  §  59)  would  make  it  mainly  turn, 
to  wit,  that  between  the  assumed  souls  and  the  corporeal 
world  as  between  two  wholly  heterogeneous  kinds  of  sub¬ 
stances  no  sort  of  reciprocal  action  could  take  place  — 
for  which  reason  he  denied  physical  influence;  for  this 
difficulty  is  merely  a  consequence  of  rational  psychology 
and  only  requires  to  be  discarded  as  a  fiction,  as  is  done 
by  Spinoza ;  and  besides  this,  there  is  the  argunientum  ad 
hominem  against  the  maintainers  of  this  doctrine,  that 
their  own  dogma  that  God,  who  is  a  spirit,  has  created 
and  continuously  governs  the  corporeal  world  implies  that 
spirit  can  act  immediately  on  bodies.  The  abiding  diffi¬ 
culty  is  rather  the  Cartesian,  that  the  world,  which  is 
only  given  us  immediately,  is  simply  an  ideal  world,  a 
world,  that  is,  consisting  of  presentments  in  our  brain; 
while  we,  over  and  above  this,  undertake  to  judge  of  a 
real  world  existing  independently  of  our  presentment. 
Spinoza  then,  in  so  far  as  he  abolishes  the  distinction 
between  substantia  cogitans  and  substantia  extensa  has  not 
solved  the  problem  but,  at  most,  rendered  physical  in¬ 
fluence  again  admissible.  But  this  is  insufficient  to 
solve  the  difficulty  for  the  law  of  causality  is  demon¬ 
stratively  of  subjective  origin.  But  even  if  it  sprang 
from  external  experience  it  would  still  merely  apper¬ 
tain  to  the  ideally  given  world  that  is  in  question. 
Hence,  in  no  case  can  it  furnish  a  bridge  between 
the  absolutely  objective  and  the  subjective,  but  it  is 
rather,  merely  the  band  which  connects  phenomena  with 
one  another  (see  <(  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung,” 
vol.  ii.  p.  12).  And  nevertheless,  in  order  more  nearly  to 
explain  the  above  adduced  identity  of  extension  and  pre¬ 
sentment,  Spinoza  postulates  something  which  is  contained 
alike  in  the  view  of  Malebranche  and  Leibnitz.  In  accord¬ 
ance  with  Malebranche,  namely,  we  see  all  things  in  God; 


io8 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


rerum  singularium  ideae  non  ipsa  ideata ,  sive  res  perceptas , 
pro  causa  agnoscunt,  sed  ipsum  Deum ,  quatenus  est  res 
cogitans  ((<  Eth.w  P.  II.,  pr.  5  ) ;  and  this  God  is  also  at  the 
same  time  the  real  and  active  principle  therein,  even  with 
Malebranche.  The  mere  fact,  however,  of  Spinoza  affix¬ 
ing  to  the  world  the  name  Deus  explains  nothing,  in  the 
last  resort.  But  at  the  same  time  there  is  with  him,  as 
with  Leibnitz,  an  exact  parallelism  between  the  extended 
and  the  presented  world :  or  do  et  connexio  idearum  idem  est 
ac  ordo  et  connexio  rerum  ( P.  II.  pr.  7),  and  other  similar 
passages.  This  is  the  harmonia  praestabilita  of  Leibnitz; 
only  that  here  the  objectively  existing  world  and  the 
presented  world  are  not  entirely  separated  as  with  the 
last  mentioned,  merely  corresponding  to  one  another  by 
virtue  of  a  harmonia  regulated  in  advance  and  from  out¬ 
side,  but  they  are  really  one  and  the  same.  We  have  here, 
therefore,  in  the  first  place,  a  thorough-going  Realism  in 
so  far  as  the  existence  of  the  things  exactly  corresponds 
to  their  presentment  in  us,  both  being  one;  we  cognize 
accordingly  the  things  in  themselves  —  they  are  in  them¬ 
selves  extensa  as  they  appear  as  cogitata  ;  in  other  words, 
in  our  presentment  of  them,  they  appear  as  extensa  (here, 
too,  it  may  be  remarked,  by  the  way,  is  the  origin  of 
Schelling’s  identity  of  the  Real  and  Ideal).  All  this  is, 
properly  speaking,  based  on  mere  assertion.  The  expo¬ 
sition  is  already  rendered  unclear  by  the  ambiguity  of  the 
word  Deus  which  is  used  in  a  wholly  improper  sense; 
hence,  it  loses  itself  in  obscurity  and  comes  in  the  end  to 
nec  impraesentiarum  haec  clarius  possum  explicare.  But 
the  want  of  clearness  in  the  exposition  arises  always 
from  a  want  of  clearness  in  the  understanding  and  think¬ 
ing  out  of  the  philosopher.  Vauvenargues  said  very  truly, 
la  clartd  est  la  bonne  foi  des  philosophes  (see  w  Revue  des 
deux  Mondes,”  1853,  15  Aout,  p.  635).  What  in  music 
is  the  <(  pure  section *  is  in  philosophy  complete  clear¬ 
ness,  which  is  the  conditio  sine  qua  non  without  the  ful¬ 
filling  of  which  everything  loses  its  value,  and  we  are 
compelled  to  say  quodcumque  ostendis  mihi  sic  incredulus 
odi.  If,  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  practical  life,  one  has 
to  carefully  avoid  misunderstanding  by  clearness,  how 
much  the  less  ought  one  to  express  oneself  incompre- 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


109 


hensibly  in  the  very  abstruse,  difficult,  and  wellnigh 
impenetrable  subjects  of  thought,  which  constitute  the 
problems  of  philosophy  ?  The  obscurity  complained  of  in 
the  doctrine  of  Spinoza,  is  owing  to  his  not  proceeding 
in  a  straightforward  manner  from  the  nature  of  things 
as  he  finds  them ;  but  from  Cartesianism,  and  accordingly 
from  all  sorts  of  traditional  conceptions,  such  as  Deus , 
substantia ,  perfectio ,  etc.,  which  he  was  concerned  to  bring 
in  a  roundabout  way  into  harmony  with  truth.  He  often 
expresses  the  best  ideas  only  indirectly,  continually  speak¬ 
ing  per  ambages  and  almost  allegorically,  as  in  the  second 
part  of  the  <(  Ethics.  ®  On  the  other  hand,  Spinoza  ex¬ 
presses  an  unmistakable  transcendental  idealism  amount¬ 
ing  to,  at  least,  a  general  recognition  of  the  truth 
clearly  expounded  by  Locke  and  still  more  by  Kant,  as 
to  the  real  distinction  between  the  phenomenon  and  the 
thing  itself,  and  the  recognition  that  only  the  first  is 
knowable  by  us.  As  instances  of  this  may  be  consulted, 
®Eth.,*  P.  II.  prop.  16,  with  the  second  corollary;  prop. 
17,  schol. ;  prop.  18,  schol. ;  prop.  19;  prop.  23,  where  it  is 
extended  to  self-knowledge;  prop.  25,  which  expresses  it 
clearly,  and  finally  as  rfeumt,  the  corollary  to  prop.  29, 
which  distinctly  says  that  we  can  neither  know  ourselves 
nor  the  things,  as  they  are  in  themselves,  but  only  as 
they  appear.  The  demonstration  of  prop.  27,  P.  III.,  ex¬ 
presses  the  matter  the  clearest,  at  least  in  the  beginning. 
Respecting  the  relation  of  the  doctrines  of  Spinoza  to 
those  of  Descartes  I  may  recall  here  what  I  have  said 
on  the  subject  in  the  “World  as  Will  and  Presentment” : 
vol.  ii. ,  p.  639  (3d  ed.  p.  739).  The  fact  of  his  starting 
from  the  conceptions  of  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  has  not 
only  been  the  occasion  of  much  obscurity  and  misunder¬ 
standing  in  the  exposition  of  Spinoza,  but  he  has  thereby 
been  led  into  many  flagrant  paradoxes,  obvious  fallacies, 
and  indeed  absurdities  and  contradictions.  In  this  way 
his  doctrine,  which  contains  so  much  that  is  true  and 
excellent  has  acquired  a  highly  undesirable  addition  of 
simply  indigestible  matter,  so  that  the  reader  is  divided 
within  himself  between  admiration  and  vexation.  But,  in 
the  aspect  considered  here,  the  chief  fault  of  Spinoza  is 
that  he  has  drawn  his  line  of  cleavage  between  the  Ideal 


I  IO 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


and  Real,  or  the  Subjective  and  Objective  world,  from  a 
false  standpoint.  Extension,  namely,  is  in  no  wise  the 
opposite  of  presentment,  but  lies  wholly  within  the  latter. 

We  perceive  things  as  extended,  and,  in  so  far  as  they 
are  extended,  they  are  our  presentment.  But  whether, 
independently  of  our  presentment,  anything  is  extended, 
or  indeed,  whether  anything  exists  at  all  is  the  question 
and  the  original  problem.  This  was  solved  later  by  Kant, 
and  in  so  far,  with  indisputable  accuracy,  in  the  sense 
that  extension  or  space  lies  entirely  in  the  presentment; 
in  other  words,  that  it  depends  on  the  latter,  inasmuch  as 
the  whole  of  space  is  its  mere  form ;  and  therefore,  inde¬ 
pendently  of  our  presentment,  no  extended  can  exist,  and 
most  certainly  does  not  exist. 

Spinoza’s  line  of  cleavage  is  accordingly  drawn  wholly 
on  the  ideal  side ;  he  has  taken  his  stand  on  the  presented 
world,  regarding  the  latter,  indicated  by  its  form  of  ex¬ 
tension,  as  the  Real,  and  therefore  as  existing  independ¬ 
ently  of  its  possibility  of  presentment,  i.  e.y  in  itself.  He 
is  on  this  ground,  therefore,  quite  right  in  saying,  that 
that  which  is  extended  and  that  which  is  presented  —  i.  e., 
our  presentment  of  bodies  and  these  bodies  themselves 
—  are  one  and  the  same  (P.  II.,  prop.  7,  schol.).  For 
assuredly  the  things  are  presented  as  extended  and  are 
only  as  extended,  presentable  —  the  world  as  presentment 
and  the  world  in  space  is  una  eademque  res ;  this  we  can 
fully  admit.  But  were  the  extension,  quality  of  the  things- 
in-themselves,  our  perception  would  then  be  a  knowledge 
of  things-in-themselves,  which  is  what  he  assumes,  and  in 
which  consists  his  realism.  Since,  however,  he  does  not 
ground  or  prove  this,  to  wit,  that  our  perception  of  a 
spacial  world  involves  a  spacial  world  independent  of  this 
perception,  the  fundamental  problem  remains  unsolved. 
This  arises,  however,  from  the  fact,  that  the  line  of  cleav¬ 
age  between  the  Real  and  Ideal,  the  Objective  and  the 
Subjective,  the  Thing-in-itself  and  the  Phenomenon,  is 
not  correctly  drawn.  On  the  contrary  as  has  been  said, 
the  cleavage,  being  in  the  middle  of  the  Ideal,  Subjective, 
Phenomenal  side  of  the  world  —  that  is,  drawn  through 
the  world  as  presentment  —  splits  the  latter  into  the  ex¬ 
tended  or  spacial  and  our  presentment  of  the  same,  where- 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


1 1 1 


upon  much  trouble  is  taken  to  show  that  both  are  only- 
one  ;  as  indeed  they  are. 

Just  because  Spinoza  holds  entirely  by  the  Ideal  side 
of  the  world,  inasmuch  as  he  thought  to  find  the  Real  in 
the  extended  belonging  thereto,  and  as,  in  consequence, 
the  perceivable  is  the  only  Real  without  us,  and  the 
knowing  (cogitans)  is  the  only  Real  within  us,  so  he, 
from  another  side,  casts  the  only  true  Real,  the  Will,  into 
the  Ideal,  which  he  makes  a  mere  modus  cogitandi ,  even 
identifying  it  with  the  judgment.  As  to  this  consult 
“Eth.”  P.  II.,  the  proofs  of  the  props.  48  et  49,  where 
we  read:  Per  voluntatern  intelligo  affirmandi  et  negandi 
facultatem;  and  again:  Concipiamus  singular ern  aliquam 
'volitionem ,  nempe  modum  cogitandi ,  quo  mens  affirmat ,  tres 
angulos  trianguli  oequales  esse  duobus  rectis,  whereupon  the 
corollary  follows :  Voluntas  et  intellectus  unum  et  idem  sunt. 

Spinoza  has,  generally,  the  great  fault  of  purposely 
misusing  words  for  the  designation  of  conceptions  which 
throughout  all  the  world  bear  other  names,  and  of  taking 
from  these  the  meaning  which  they  everywhere  have. 
Thus  he  calls  <(  God  ®  what  is  everywhere  termed  (<  World >} ; 
(( Justice”  what  is  everywhere  termed  “Power,®  and 
(<  Will  ®  what  is  everywhere  termed  (<  Judgment. 5>  We  are 
fully  justified  as  regards  this,  in  recalling  the  Hetman 
of  the  Cossacks  in  Kotzebue’s  <(  Benjowskij.” 

Berkeley,  although  certainly  later,  and  with  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  Locke,  went  logically  farther  in  this  problem 
than  the  Cartesians,  and  was  thereby  the  originator  of 
the  proper  and  true  Idealism,  that  is,  of  the  knowledge, 
that  that  in  space  which  is  extended  and  which  fills  it,  in 
short,  the  perceivable  world  generally,  can  only  have  an 
existence  as  such,  in  our  presentment;  and  that  it  is  ab¬ 
surd,  and  even  contradictory,  to  attribute  to  it  a  further 
existence  outside  of  all  presentment,  and  independently 
of  the  knowing  subject,  and  thereby  to  assume  a  matter 
existing  in  itself.* 

*  With  laymen  in  philosophy,  to  whom  many  doctors  of  the  same  be¬ 
long,  one  ought  never  to  use  the  word  « Idealism, »  because  they  do  not 
know  what  it  means,  and  carry  on  with  it  all  sorts  of  nonsense.  They 
understandby  « Idealism  »  at  times  <( Spiritualism, »  and  at  times  some¬ 
thing  or  other  which  is  opposed  to  Philistinism,  and  are  confirmed  and 


I  12 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


This  is,  indeed,  a  true  and  deep  insight,  but  his  whole 
philosophy  consists  in  nothing  else.  He  hit  upon  the 
Ideal  and  separated  it  completely;  but  he  did  not  know 
where  to  find  the  Real,  about  which  he  troubled  himself 
but  little,  expressing  himself  respecting  it  only  occasion¬ 
ally,  piecemeal,  and  inadequately.  God’s  Will  and  Omnip¬ 
otence  is  with  him  the  immediate  cause  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  perceivable  world,  i.  c. ,  of  all  our  presentments. 
Real  existence  only  accrues  to  knowing  and  willing 
beings,  such  as  we  ourselves  are;  hence  these  constitute, 
together  with  God,  the  Real.  They  are  spirits,  that  is, 
knowing  and  willing  beings,  for  willing  and  knowing  he 
regarded  as  inseparable.  He  has  this  also  in  common 
with  his  predecessors,  that  he  regards  God  as  better 
known  than  the  present  world,  and  deems  a  reduction  to 
him  an  explanation.  His  clerical,  and,  indeed,  episcopal 
position  laid  altogether  too  heavy  chains  on  him,  and 
limited  him  to  a  narrow  circle  of  thought  with  which  he 
could  never  come  into  conflict.  Hence  he  could  go  no 
farther,  but  true  and  false  had  to  learn  to  mutually 
accommodate  themselves  in  his  head  as  well  as  they 
could.  This  remark,  indeed,  may  be  extended  to  the 
works  of  all  these  philosophers,  with  the  exception  of 
Spinoza.  The  Jewish  Theism,  unamenable  to  any  test, 
dead  to  all  research,  and  hence  appearing  really  as  a 
fixed  idea,  planting  itself  in  the  way  of  truth  at  every 
step,  vitiates  them  all;  so  that  the  evil  which  it  produces 
here  in  the  theoretical  sphere,  may  be  taken  as  a  pend¬ 
ant  to  that  which  it  has  produced  throughout  a  thou¬ 
sand  years  in  the  practical  —  I  mean  in  the  shape  of 
religious  wars,  inquisitions,  and  conversions  of  nations 
by  the  sword.  The  closest  affinity  between  Malebranche, 
Spinoza,  and  Berkeley  is  unmistakable.  We  see  them  all 
proceeding  from  Descartes,  in  so  far  as  they  retain  and 

strengthened  in  this  view  by  ordinary  men  of  letters.  The  words <(  Ideal¬ 
ism  »  and  <(  Realism  »  are  not  anything  and  everything,  but  have  their 
fixed  philosophical  meaning.  Those  who  mean  something  else  should 
employ  another  word. 

The  opposition  of  (<  Idealism  »  and  <(  Realism  »  concerns  the  Known, 
the  Object,  while  that  between  Spiritualism  and  Materialism,  concerns 
the  knowing,  the  Subject.  (Modem  ignorant  muddlers  confound  Ideal¬ 
ism  and  Spiritualism). 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


113 

seek  to  solve  the  fundamental  problem  presented  by 
him  in  the  form  of  a  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of  the 
outer  world;  concerned  as  they  are  to  investigate  the 
separation  and  connection  of  the  world  which  is  Ideal, 
subjective  or  given  solely  in  our  presentment,  and  the 
Real  or  objective,  which  is  independent  of  it,  and, 
therefore,  existing  in  itself.  As  we  have  said,  therefore, 
this  problem  is  the  axis  on  which  the  whole  of 
modern  philosophy  turns.  Locke  distinguishes  himself 
from  these  philosophers  in  that  probably  because 
he  stands  under  the  influence  of  Hobbes  and  Bacon, 
he  attaches  himself  as  closely  as  possible  to  ex¬ 
perience  and  the  common  understanding,  avoiding  as  far 
as  may  be  hyperphysical  hypotheses.  The  real  is  for 
him  matter,  and  without  turning  his  attention  to  the 
Leibnitzean  scruple  as  to  the  impossibility  of  a  casual 
connection  between  the  immaterial,  thinking,  and  the 
material,  extended  substance,  he  at  once  assumes  physical 
influence  between  matter  and  the  knowing  subject.  In 
this  he  proceeds  with  rare  deliberation  and  honesty  so 
far  as  to  confess  that  possibly  knowing  and  thinking 
substance  itself  might  also  be  matter  ( <(  On  the  Human 
Understanding,®  L.  IV.,  c.  3,  §  6).  This  it  was,  which 
procured  for  him  later  the  repeated  praise  of  the  great 
Voltaire,  and  in  his  own  time,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
malicious  attacks  of  a  cunning  Anglican  priest,  the  Bishop 
of  Worcester.  With  him  the  Real,  i.  e.,  Matter  gener¬ 
ates  in  the  knowing  subject  by  <(  Impulse,®  that  is,  con¬ 
tact,  presentments,  or  the  Ideal  {Ibid.,  L.  I.,  c.  8, 
§  11).  We  have  here,  therefore,  a  thoroughly  massive 
Realism,  calling  forth  contradiction  by  its  very  exorbi¬ 
tance,  and  giving  occasion  to  the  Berkeleyan  Idealism, 
whose  special  origination  is,  perhaps,  to  be  found  when 
Locke  at  the  end  of  §  2  of  the  31st  chapter  of  the  2nd  book 
with  such  a  surprising  absence  of  reflection,  says,  among 
other  things: <( Solidity,  Extension,  Figure,  Motion  and  Rest, 
would  be  really  in  the  world  as  they  are,  whether  there  were 
any  sensible  being  to  receive  them  or  not.  ®  For  as  soon  as 
one  considers  the  matter  one  must  recognize  the  above  as 
false,  in  which  case  the  Berkeleyan  Idealism  stands  there 
and  is  undeniable.  In  the  meantime  Locke  does  not 
8 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


1 14 

overlook  the  chasm  between  the  presentments  in  us  and 
the  things  existing  independently  of  us,  in  short,  the  dis¬ 
tinction  of  Ideal  and  Real;  in  the  end,  however,  he  dis¬ 
poses  of  it  by  arguments  of  sound  but  rough  common 
sense,  and  by  appealing  to  the  sufficiency  of  our  knowl¬ 
edge  of  things  for  practical  purposes  ( Ibid .,  L.  IV.,  c. 
4  and  9),  which  obviously  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
question,  and  only  shows  how  very  inadequate  to  the 
problem  Empiricism  remains.  But  even  his  Realism  leads 
him  to  limit  that  in  our  knowledge  which  involves  the 
Real,  to  the  qualities  inhering  in  the  things  as  they  are 
in  themselves,  and  to  distinguish  these  from  our  mere 
knowledge  of  them  or  from  that  which  merely  pertains 
to  the  Ideal  —  terming  the  latter  accordingly  secondary, 
but  the  former  primary  qualities.  This  is  the  origin  of 
the  distinction  between  thing  in  itself  and  phenomenon, 
which  becomes  so  important  later  on  in  the  Kantian 
philosophy.  In  Locke,  then,  we  have  the  true  genetic 
point  of  connection  between  the  Kantian  doctrines  and 
the  earlier  philosophy.  The  former  were  stimulated  and 
more  immediately  occasioned  by  Hume’s  sceptical  criti¬ 
cisms  of  Locke’s  doctrines;  while,  on  the  other  hand; 
they  have  only  a  polemical  relation  to  the  Leibnitz- 
Wolffian  philosophy. 

The  above  primary  qualities,  which  are  exclusively  the 
determinations  in  the  things  in  themselves,  and  which 
hence  appertain  to  these  outside  and  independently  of 
our  presentment,  resolve  themselves  entirely  into  such  as 
cannot  be  thought  away,  namely,  extension,  impenetra¬ 
bility,  figure,  motion,  or  rest,  and  number.  All  the  re¬ 
mainder  are  recognized  as  secondary,  that  is,  as  creations 
of  the  actions  of  those  primary  qualities  on  our  organs 
of  sense,  and  consequently  as  mere  feelings  in  these; 
such  are  color,  tone,  taste,  smell,  hardness,  softness, 
smoothness,  roughness,  etc.  These  therefore,  have  no 
similarity  whatever  with  the  quality  in  the  thing  in  itself 
which  excites  them,  but  are  reducible  to  the  primary 
qualities  as  their  causes  such  alone  being  purely  object¬ 
ive  and  really  part  of  the  existing  things  ( Ibid .,  L.  I., 
c.  8,  §  7,  seq.  .).  Our  conceptions  of  these  latter  are 
therefore  really  true  copies,  which  accurately  reproduce 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL  115 

the  qualities  that  are  present  in  the  things  in  themselves 
(l.c.  §  15).  I  wish  the  reader  joy  who  really  feels  here 
the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  Realism.  We  see  then  that 
Locke  deduces  from  the  nature  of  the  things  in  them¬ 
selves,  whose  presentments  we  receive  from  without,  that 
which  accrues  to  the  action  of  the  nerves  of  the  sense- 
organs,  an  easy,  comprehensible,  and  indisputable  con¬ 
sideration.  But  Kant  later  on  made  the  immeasurably 
greater  step  of  also  deducing  what  belongs  to  the  action 
of  our  brain  ( that  incomparably  greater  nervous  mass ) ; 
whereby  all  the  above  pretended  primary  qualities  sink 
into  secondary  ones,  and  the  assumed  things  themselves 
into  mere  phenomena,  but  the  real  thing  in  itself,  now 
stripped  of  these  qualities,  remains  over  as  an  entirely 
unknown  quantity,  a  mere  x.  This  assuredly  requires  a 
difficult  and  deep  analysis,  and  one  which  has  long  to  be 
defended  against  the  attacks  alike  of  misunderstanding 
and  lack  of  understanding. 

Locke  does  not  deduce  his  primary  qualities  of  things, 
and  does  not  give  any  further  ground  why  only  these 
and  no  others  are  purely  objective,  except  that  they  are 
indestructible.  Now  if  we  investigate  for  ourselves  why 
he  declares  some  qualities  of  things  which  work  im¬ 
mediately  on  the  sensibility,  and  consequently  come 
directly  from  without,  not  to  be  present  objectively, 
while  he  concedes  objectivity  to  those  which,  as  has  since 
been  recognized,  proceed  from  the  special  functions  of 
our  intellect,  we  find  the  reason  to  be  that  the  objec- 
tively-preceiving  consciousness  (the  consciousness  of  other 
things)  necessarily  requires  a  complex  apparatus,  as  the 
function  of  which  it  appears,  and  consequently  that  its 
most  essential  ground-determinations  are  fixed  from  with¬ 
in.  In  this  way  the  univeral  form  or  mode  of  perception 
from  which  alone  the  cl  priori  knowable  can  proceed, 
presents  itself  as  the  warp  of  the  perceived  world,  and 
accordingly  appears  as  that  which  is  absolutely  necessary, 
unexceptional,  and  in  no  way  to  be  got  rid  of;  so  that 
it  stands  as  the  condition  of  everything  else  in  its  mani¬ 
fold  variety.  This  is  admitted  to  be,  immediately,  time 
and  space,  and  that  which  follows  from  them,  and  is 
only  possible  through  them.  In  themselves  time  and 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


ii  6 

space  are  empty.  If  anything  is  to  come  within  them, 
it  must  appear  as  matter,  that  is,  as  an  activity;  in  other 
words,  as  causality,  for  matter  is  through  and  through 
simply  causality;  its  being  consists  in  its  action,  and 
vice  versa;  it  is  but  the  objectively-conceived  form  of 
the  understanding  for  causality  itself.  (<(On  the  Four¬ 
fold  Root  of  the  Principle  of  Cause,®  2d  ed.,  p.  77; 
3d  ed.,  p.  82;  as  also  <(  World  as  Will  and  Present¬ 
ment,®  2d  ed.,  vol.  i.,  p.  9,  and  vol.  ii.,  pp.  48,  49; 
3d  ed.,  vol.  i.,  p.  10,  and  vol.  ii.,  p.  52.)  Hence  it  comes 
that  Locke’s  primary  qualities  are  merely  such  as  cannot 
be  thought  away  —  a  fact  which  itself  clearly  enough 
indicates  their  subjective  origin,  as  proceeding  immedi¬ 
ately  from  the  construction  of  the  perceiving  apparatus 
—  and  he  therefore  holds  for  absolutely  objective  pre¬ 
cisely  that  which,  as  function  of  the  brain,  is  much  more 
subjective  than  the  sense-feeling,  which  is  occasioned,  or 
at  least  more  directly  determined,  from  without. 

In  the  meantime  it  is  interesting  to  see  how  through 
all  these  various  conceptions  and  explanations,  the  prob¬ 
lem  started  by  Descartes  respecting  the  relation  between 
the  Ideal  and  the  Real  becomes  ever  more  developed  and 
clarified,  and  the  truth  thus  promoted.  It  is  true  this 
was  favored  by  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  or,  more 
correctly,  of  nature,  which,  in  the  short  space  of  two  cen¬ 
turies,  gave  birth  to  and  ripened  half  a  dozen  thinking 
heads  in  Europe.  By  the  gift  of  fortune,  in  addition, 
they  were  enabled,  in  the  midst  of  a  groveling  world 
struggling  after  advantage  and  pleasure,  to  follow  their 
noble  calling  undisturbed  by  the  yelping  of  priests,  or  the 
foolish  talk  and  caballing  of  the  contemporary  professors 
of  philosophy. 

Now  Locke,  in  accordance  with  his  strict  empiricism, 
had  deduced  the  knowledge  of  the  causal  relation  from 
experience,  while  Hume  did  not  dispute  as  he  ought  to 
have  done,  this  false  assumption,  but  immediately  over¬ 
shot  the  mark  by  the  observation,  correct  in  itself,  that 
experience  can  never  give  us  anything  more  than  a  mere 
sequence  of  things  upon  one  another,  sensibly  and  imme¬ 
diately,  and  never  a  proper  consequence  and  action — i.  e. , 
a  necessary  interconnection.  It  is  well  known  how  the 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


117 


sceptical  objection  of  Hume  was  the  occasion  of  Kant’s 
incomparably  deeper  investigations  into  the  subject, 
which  led  him  to  the  result  that  space  and  time,  no  less 
than  causality,  are  known  by  us  a  priori ,  that  is,  lie  in  us 
before  all  experience,  and  hence  belong  to  the  subjective 
side  of  knowledge.  From  this  it  follows  further,  that  all 
those  primary,  that  is,  absolute  qualities  of  things,  which 
Locke  had  assigned  to  them,  since  they  are  all  composed 
of  pure  determinations  of  time,  of  space,  and  of  causality, 
cannot  belong  to  the  things  in  themselves,  but  to  our  mode 
of  knowledge  of  the  same,  and  consequently  are  to  be 
counted  to  the  Ideal  and  not  to  the  Real.  The  final 
consequence  of  this  is  that  we  know  the  things  in  no 
respect  as  they  are  in  themselves,  but  solely  in  their 
phenomena.  The  Real,  the  thing  in  itself,  therefore 
remains  something  wholly  unknown,  a  mere  x,  and  the 
whole  perceivable  world  accrues  to  the  Ideal  as  a 
mere  presentment,  a  phenomenon,  which  nevertheless, 
even  as  such,  in  some  way  involves  the  Real,  as  thing  in 
itself. 

From  this  standpoint  I,  finally,  have  made  a  step,  and 
believe  that  it  will  be  the  last;  because  I  have  solved  the 
problem  upon  which,  since  Descartes,  all  philosophizing 
turns,  in  that  I  reduce  all  being  and  knowledge  to  the  two 
elements  of  our  self-consciousness,  in  other  words,  to  some¬ 
thing  beyond  which  there  can  be  no  further  principle  of 
explanation,  since  it  is  the  most  immediate  and  therefore 
ultimate.  I  have  called  to  mind,  what  indeed  results  from 
the  researches  of  all  my  predecessors,  which  I  have  here 
noticed,  to  wit,  that  the  absolute  Real  or  the  thing  in 
itself  can  never  be  given  us  directly  from  without,  in 
the  way  of  mere  presentment,  since  it  is  inevitably  in 
the  nature  of  the  latter  only  to  furnish  the  Ideal ;  while, 
on  the  contrary,  since  we  ourselves  are  indisputably  Real, 
the  knowledge  of  the  Real  must  in  some  way  or  other 
be  derivable  from  within  our  own  nature.  And  in  fact 
it  here  appears,  in  an  immediate  manner  in  conscious¬ 
ness,  as  will.  The  line  of  cleavage  between  the  Real 
and  the  Ideal  falls  therefore,  with  me,  in  such  wise  that 
the  whole  perceivable  and  objectively-presented  world, 
including  every  man’s  body,  together  with  time,  space, 


1 18  SCHOPENHAUER'S  ESSAYS 

and  causality,  in  other  words,  together  with  the  extended 
of  Spinoza,  and  the  matter  of  Locke,  belongs  as  pre¬ 
sentment  to  the  Ideal.  But  in  this  case  the  Will  alone 
remains  as  the  Real,  and  this  the  whole  of  my  predeces¬ 
sors,  thoughtlessly  and  without  reflection,  had  thrown 
into  the  Ideal  as  a  mere  result  of  presentment  and  of 
thought,  Descartes  and  Spinoza  having  even  identified  it 
with  the  judgment.  Ethics  is  therefore  with  me  directly 
and  incomparably  more  closely  knit  to  metaphysics  than 
in  any  other  system,  and  thus  the  moral  significance  of 
the  world  and  of  existence  is  more  firmly  fixed  than  ever. 
But  Will  and  Presentment  are  fundamentally  distinct, 
inasmuch  as  they  constitute  the  ultimate  and  basal  oppo¬ 
sition  in  all  things  in  the  world  and  leave  nothing  re¬ 
maining  over.  The  presented  thing  and  the  presentment 
of  it  are  the  same,  but  only  the  presented  thing,  and 
not  the  thing  in  itself.  The  latter  is  always  Will,  it 
matters  not  in  what  form  it  may  appear  in  presentment. 


APPENDIX. 


Readers  who  are  familiar  with  what  has  passed  for 
philosophy  in  Germany,  in  the  course  of  the  present  cen¬ 
tury,  may  perhaps  be  surprised  not  to  find  mentioned  in 
the  period  between  Kant  and  myself,  either  the  Fichtean 
Idealism  or  the  system  of  the  Absolute  Identity  of  the 
Real  and  Ideal,  since  they  seem  specially  to  belong-  to 
our  subject.  But  I  have  not  been  able  to  include  them, 
simply  because,  in  my  opinion,  Fichte,  Schelling,  and 
Hegel  are  no  philosophers,  inasmuch  as  they  fail  in  the 
first  requirement  of  the  philosopher,  earnestness  and 
honesty  of  research.  They  are  mere  sophists ;  they 
wanted  to  seem  and  not  to  be,  and  have  sought,  not  the 
truth,  but  their  own  interest  and  advancement  in  the 
world.  Places  from  governments,  honoraria  from  students 
and  booksellers,  and  as  means  to  this  end  as  much  sensa¬ 
tion  and  effect  as  possible  from  their  sham  philosophy  — 
such  were  the  guiding  stars  and  inspiring  genii  of  these 
disciples  of  wisdom.  Hence  they  have  not  passed  the 
entrance-examination,  and  so  cannot  be  admitted  into 
the  honorable  company  of  the  thinkers  of  the  human  race. 

Meanwhile,  they  have  excelled  in  one  thing,  and  that  is, 
in  the  art  of  turning  the  head  of  the  public  and  of  mak¬ 
ing  themselves  pass  for  what  they  were  not,  which  re¬ 
quires  talent,  indeed,  but  not  philosophical  talent.  That 
they  were  incapable  of  effecting  anything  solid  in  philos-, 
ophy  was  owing,  in  the  last  resort,  to  the  fact  that  their 
intellect  was  not  free,  but  remained  in  the  service  of 
the  will;  and  in  this  case,  though  the  intellect  can  in¬ 
deed  achieve  much  for  this  or  that  purpose,  it  can  do 
nothing  for  philosophy  any  more  than  for  art.  For  these 
lay  down  as  their  first  condition,  that  the  intellect  should 
act  on  its  own  account,  and  during  the  time  of  this 
activity  should  cease  to  be  in  the  service  of  the  will, 
that  is,  to  have  the  objects  of  one’s  own  personality  in 
view;  but  when  it  is  itself  active,  simply  of  its  own  mo- 

(119) 


120 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


tion,  it,  in  accordance  with  its  nature,  knows  no  other 
purpose  than  the  truth.  Hence  it  does  not  suffice,  in  order 
to  be  a  philosopher,  which  means  lover  of  wisdom  (this  be¬ 
ing  nothing  else  than  truth),  to  love  the  truth  in  so  far  as 
it  harmonizes  with  one’s  own  interest,  or  with  the  will  of 
superiors,  or  the  dogmas  of  the  church,  or  the  prejudices  or 
tastes  of  contemporaries;  as  long  as  one  remains  in  this 
position,  one  is  only  a  <pdauTo$  and  no  <pd6<ro<f>o?.  For  this 
title  of  honor  is  well  and  wisely  conceived,  in  that  it  implies 
that  one  should  love  the  truth  earnestly,  and  with  one’s 
whole  heart,  and  therefore  unconditionally,  without  re¬ 
serve  before  everything,  and  in  case  of  necessity  even  to 
the  defiance  of  everything.  The  reason  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  above  indicated  that  the  intellect  has  become 
free,  in  which  case  it  does  not  even  know  or  understand 
any  other  interest  than  that  of  truth;  the  consequence 
being,  that  one  then  acquires  an  irreconcilable  hatred 
against  all  lying  and  deception,  no  matter  what  garb 
they  may  wear.  In  this  way  we  are  not  very  likely  to 
get  on  well  in  the  world,  but  all  the  more  in  philosophy. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  bad  auspice  for  the  latter,  if 
proceeding  avowedly  from  the  investigation  of  truth,  we 
begin,  thereupon,  to  say  farewell  to  all  uprightness,  hon¬ 
esty,  and  thoroughness,  and  are  only  concerned  to  make 
ourselves  appear  what  we  are  not.  In  this  case  one  as¬ 
sumes,  like  the  above  three  sophists,  now  a  false  pathos, 
now  an  artificially  high  earnestness,  now  a  mien  of  in¬ 
finite  superiority,  in  order  to  dazzle  where  one  despairs 
of  being  able  to  convince;  one  writes  without  considera¬ 
tion,  because,  only  thinking  of  writing,  one  saves  one’s 
thought  up  for  the  purpose  of  writing;  one  seeks  now  to 
inculcate  palpable  sophisms  as  demonstrations,  now  to  pro¬ 
pound  hollow  and  senseless  logomachy  for  deep  thoughts ; 
one  invokes  intellectual  intuition  or  the  absolute  thought 
and  self -movement  of  conceptions;  one  challenges  ex¬ 
pressly  the  standpoint  of  <(  reflection, w  that  is,  of  rational 
thought,  straightforward  consideration,  and  honest  pre¬ 
sentation,  in  other  words,  the  proper  and  normal  use  of 
the  reason  generally;  one  expresses  a  boundless  contempt 
for  the  (( philosophy  of  reflection,  ®  by  which  name  is 
designated  every  connected  course  of  thought  which 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


I  2 1 


deduces  consequences  from  principles,  such  as  has  consti¬ 
tuted  every  earlier  philosophy;  and  accordingly,  if  one 
is  only  provided  with  sufficient  audacity,  and  encouraged 
by  the  pitiable  spirit  of  the  age,  one  expresses  oneself 
in  some  such  manner  as  follows :  <(  It  is  not  difficult  to 
see  that  the  mode  of  stating  a  proposition,  adducing 
reasons  for  it  and  refuting  its  opposite  in  the  same  way, 
by  reason,  is  not  the  form  which  truth  can  assume. 
Truth  is  the  movement  of  itself  within  itself, ®  etc. 
(Hegel,  preface  to  the  (<  Phenomenology  of  the  Mind,® 
p.  lvii.,  in  the  complete  edition,  p.  36.)  I  think  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  that  whoever  puts  forward  anything  like 
this,  is  a  shameless  charlatan,  who  is  anxious  to  befool 
simpletons,  and  who  observes  that  he  has  found  his  people 
in  the  Germans  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

If,  accordingly,  under  pretense  of  hurrying  to  the  tem¬ 
ple  of  truth,  one  hands  over  the  bridle  to  the  interests 
of  one’s  own  person,  which  looks  sideways  toward  alto¬ 
gether  different  guiding  stars,  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
tastes  and  foibles  of  contemporaries,  the  religion  of  the  land, 
but  especially  toward  the  purposes  and  hints  of  the  gov¬ 
erning  powers  —  Oh,  how  then  can  one  expect  to  reach 
the  high,  abrupt,  bald  rock  on  which  stands  the  temple 
of  truth?  One  may  easily  attach  to  oneself,  by  the  surfe 
bond  of  interest,  a  crowd  of  genuinely  hopeful  disciples, 
hopeful,  that  is,  for  protection  and  places,  who  may 
apparently  form  a  sect,  but  really  a  faction,  and  by 
whose  united  stentorian  voices  one  may  be  proclaimed  to 
all  the  four  winds  as  a  sage  without  parallel  —  the  inter¬ 
est  of  the  person  is  satisfied,  that  of  truth  betrayed. 

All  this  explains  the  painful  feeling  which  seizes  one, 
when,  after  the  study  of  real  thinkers,  such  as  have 
been  above  described,  one  turns  to  the  writings  of  Fichte 
and  Schelling,  or  indeed  to  the  audaciously  daubed  non¬ 
sense  of  Hegel,  produced  as  it  is  with  a  boundless, 
though  justified,  confidence  in  German  folly.  With  the 
former  one  had  always  found  an  honest  investigation  of 
truth,  and  as  honest  an  endeavor  to  communicate  their 
thoughts  to  others.  Hence  he  who  reads  Locke,  Kant, 
Hume,  Malebranche,  Spinoza,  Descartes,  feels  himself 
elevated  and  pleasurably  impressed.  This  is  effected  by 


122 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


contact  with  a  noble  mind,  which  has  thoughts  and 
awakens  thoughts.  The  reverse  of  this  takes  place  in 
reading  the  above-mentioned  three  German  sophists.  A 
straightforward  person  who  opens  one  of  their  books  and 
then  asks  himself  whether  this  is  the  tone  of  a  thinker 
who  would  teach  or  of  a  charlatan  who  would  deceive, 
cannot  remain  five  minutes  in  doubt  about  it;  so  much 
does  everything  here  breathe  of  dishonesty.  The  tone 
of  quiet  investigation  characterizing  all  previous  philos¬ 
ophy  is  exchanged  for  that  of  unshakable  certainty  such 
as  is  common  to  charlatanry  of  every  kind  in  all  time, 
but  which  in  this  case  claims  to  rest  on  immediate  intel¬ 
lectual  intuition,  or  on  thought  which  is  absolute,  that 
is,  independent  of  the  subject  and  its  fallibility.  From 
every  page,  from  every  line,  speaks  the  endeavor  to 
hoodwink,  to  deceive,  the  reader,  now  by  dazzling  to 
disconcert  him,  now  by  incomprehensible  phrases  and 
flagrant  nonsense  to  stun  him,  now  by  audacity  of  asser¬ 
tion  to  befool  him,  in  short,  in  every  possible  way  to 
throw  dust  in  his  eyes  and  to  mystify  him.  Hence 
the  feeling  which  discovers  itself  in  the  transition  in 
question  in  respect  of  the  theoretical,  may  be  com¬ 
pared  with  that  which  in  respect  of  the  practical  he 
has,  who  coming  from  a  society  of  honorable  men,  finds 
himself  in  a  haunt  of  swindlers.  How  worthy  a  man, 
in  comparison  with  such,  is  that  Christian  Wolff,  so 
undervalued  and  ridiculed  by  these  three  sophists!  He 
had  and  furnished  real  thoughts,  but  they  only  word 
images  and  phrases  for  the  purpose  of  deceiving.  The 
truly  distinguishing  character  of  the  philosophy  of  this 
whole,  so-called,  Post- Kantian  school,  is  dishonesty,  its 
element  is  the  blue  ether  and  personal  ends  its  goal. 
Its  exponents  are  concerned  to  seem  not  to  be, —  they  are 
therefore  sophists,  not  philosophers.  The  mockery  of 
future  generations,  extending  itself  to  their  votaries,  and 
then  oblivion,  awaits  them.  With  the  tendency  of  these 
persons,  as  above  indicated,  is  connected,  we  may  say  in 
passing,  the  scolding  and  abusive  tone  which,  as  an 
obligato  accompaniment,  pervades  all  Schelling’s  writings. 
If  this  were  not  so,  if  honesty  rather  than  pretentious¬ 
ness  and  emptiness  had  been  at  work,  Schelling,  who  is 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


123 


without  doubt  the  most  gifted  of  the  three,  might  at 
least  have  occupied  the  subordinate  rank  in  philosophy 
of  an  eclectic  of  passing  service.  The  amalgam  which 
he  prepared  from  the  doctrines  of  Plotinos,  of  Spinoza, 
of  Jakob  Bohme,  of  Kant,  and  of  the  natural  science  of 
modern  times,  might  for  a  while  have  filled  the  va¬ 
cancy  produced  by  the  negative  results  of  the  Kantian 
philosophy,  until  a  really  new  philosophy  had  come  for¬ 
ward  and  properly  afforded  the  satisfaction  required  by 
the  former.  He  has  more  particularly  used  the  natural 
science  of  our  century  to  revive  the  abstract  pantheism 
of  Spinoza.  Spinoza  had,  without  any  knowlege  of  nature, 
philosophized  out  of  abstract  conceptions,  and,  without 
knowing  the  things  themselves  properly,  had  erected  the 
edifice  of  his  doctrines.  To  clothe  this  dry  skeleton  with 
flesh  and  blood,  and,  as  well  as  might  be,  to  communi¬ 
cate  life  and  motion  to  it  by  the  application  of  the 
natural  science  which  has  since  then  developed,  although 
often  done  with  a  false  application,  is  the  undeniable 
service  of  Schelling  in  his  philosophy  of  nature,  which  is 
also  the  best  of  his  multifarious  attempts  and  new 
departures. 

Just  as  children  play  with  weapons  intended  for  serious 
purposes,  or  other  tools  of  grown-up  persons,  so  the  three 
sophists  we  have  under  consideration  have  dealt  with  the 
subject  here  treated  of,  thus  furnishing  the  grotesque 
pendant  to  two  centuries  of  laborious  investigations  on 
the  part  of  serious  philosophers.  After  Kant  had  more 
than  ever  accentuated  the  great  problem  of  the  relation 
between  the  self-existent  and  our  presentments,  and 
thereby  brought  it  much  nearer  its  solution,  Fichte 
starts  up  with  the  assertion  that  there  is  nothing  behind 
the  presentments,  these  being  no  more  than  products  of 
the  knowing  subjects,  of  the  Ego.  While  seeking  in  this 
way  to  outbid  Kant,  he  produced  a  mere  caricature  of 
the  latter’s  philosophy,  inasmuch  as,  by  the  continuous 
application  of  the  method  so  much  vaunted  by  these 
three  pseudo-philosophers,  he  abolished  the  Real  alto¬ 
gether,  and  left  nothing  but  the  Ideal  remaining.  Then 
came  Schelling,  who,  in  his  system  of  the  absolute 
identity  of  the  Real  and  Ideal,  declared  the  whole  dis- 


124 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


tinction  of  no  account,  and  maintained  the  Ideal  to  be 
also  the  Real,  that  both  were  one.  In  this  way  he  at¬ 
tempted  to  throw  again  into  confusion  what  had  been  so 
carefully,  and,  by  a  process  of  such  slow  and  gradually 
developed  reflection,  separated.  ( Schelling,  <(  On  the 
Relation  of  the  Philosophy  of  Nature  to  the  Fichtean,  ® 
pp.  14-21.)  The  distinction  of  Ideal  and  Real  is  crudely 
denied,  in  imitation  of  the  above  criticised  error  of 
Spinoza.  At  the  same  time,  even  the  monads  of  Leib¬ 
nitz, —  that  monstrous  identification  of  two  absurdities, 
namely,  of  the  atoms  and  of  the  indivisible  original  and 
essentially  knowing  individuals,  termed  souls  —  are  again 
brought  forward,  pompously  apotheosized,  and  pressed 
into  the  service.  ( Schelling,  (<  Ideas  for  the  Philosophy 
of  Nature,®  2d  ed.,  pp.  38,  82.)  Schelling’s  philosophy 
of  nature  bears  the  name  of  the  philosophy  of  identity, 
because,  walking  in  the  footsteps  of  Spinoza,  it  does  away 
with  three  distinctions  which  the  latter  had  also  done 
away  with,  to  wit,  that  between  God  and  the  world,  that 
between  body  and  soul,  and,  finally,  that  between  Ideal 
and  Real,  in  the  perceived  world.  The  last  distinction, 
however,  as  has  been  above  shown,  in  the  consideration  of 
Spinoza,  in  no  way  depends  on  the  two  others.  On  the 
contrary,  the  more  it  is  brought  into  prominence,  by  so 
much  the  more  the  two  others  are  rendered  doubtful,  for 
while  it  is  based  on  a  simple  act  of  reflection,  they  are 
based  on  dogmatic  demonstrations,  which  Kant  has  over¬ 
thrown.  In  accordance  with  all  this,  metaphysic  was 
identified  by  Schelling  with  physic,  and  hence,  to  a  mere 
physical-chemical  diatribe,  the  high-sounding  title  of 
<(  concerning  the  world-soul  ®  was  affixed.  All  those  prop¬ 
erly  metaphysical  problems,  which  untiringly  impress 
themselves  upon  the  human  consciousness,  were  to  be 
silenced  by  a  crude  denial  clothed  in  strong  assertions. 
Nature  is  here  just  because  it  is,  of  itself  and  through 
itself;  we  bestow  upon  it  the  title  God,  and  therewith  it  is 
disposed  of,  and  he  who  asks  for  anything  more  is  a  fool. 
The  distinction  between  subjective  and  objective  is  a  mere 
invention  of  the  schools,  like  the  whole  Kantian  philos¬ 
ophy,  whose  distinction  of  a  priori  and  a  posteriori  is  also 
of  no  account,  our  empirical  perception  of  itself  supplying 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


125 


us  with  the  things-in-themselves,  etc.  Let  the  reader  con¬ 
sult  <(On  the  Relation  of  the  Philosophy  of  Nature  with 
the  Fichtean,”  pp.  51  and  57,  as  also  p.  61,  where  ridicule 
is  expressly  heaped  on  those  (<  who  are  astounded  to  find 
that  not  is  nothing,  and  cannot  sufficiently  wonder  that 
anything  really  exists. d  We  see,  therefore,  that  with  Herr 
von  Schelling  everything  seems  to  explain  itself.  At 
bottom,  however,  this  sort  of  talk  is  only  a  veiled  appeal 
in  pompous  phraseology  to  the  so-called  sound,  but  more 
correctly  rough,  understanding.  For  the  rest,  I  may  recall 
here  what  I  have  said  in  the  second  volume  of  my  chief 
work,  at  the  beginning  of  chapter  xvii.  Significant  for 
our  subject  and  very  naive  is  the  passage  on  p.  69,  in  the 
book  of  Schelling’s  just  quoted  from:  <(  Had  empiricism 
completely  attained  its  object,  its  opposition  to  philos¬ 
ophy,  and  therewith  philosophy  itself,  as  special  sphere  or 
kind  of  science,  would  disappear;  all  abstractions  would 
dissolve  themselves  in  the  direct,  ( friendly, J  perception; 
the  highest  would  be  the  sport  of  pleasure  and  innocence, 
the  most  difficult  easy,  the  most  senseless  sensible,  and 
man  might  read  joyfully  and  freely  in  the  book  of  nature. w 
This  would  certainly  be  very  nice !  but  it  is  not  the  case 
with  us.  Thought  does  not  let  itself  be  shown  the  door 
in  this  manner.  The  serious  old  Sphinx  with  its  riddle 
lies  immovably  there,  and  does  not  dash  itself  off  the  rock 
because  you  explain  that  it  is  a  spectre.  As,  therefore, 
Schelling  himself  observed  later  that  the  metaphysical 
problem  cannot  be  got  rid  of  by  dictatorial  assertions,  he 
gives  us  a  genuinely  metaphysical  essay  in  his  treatise  on 
freedom,  which  is,  however,  a  mere  piece  of  imagination, 
a  conte  bleu ,  whence  it  comes  that  the  style,  whenever  it 
assumes  the  tone  of  demonstration,  has  a  decidedly  comical 
effect. 

By  his  doctrine  of  the  identity  of  the  Ideal  and  the 
Real,  Schelling  has  accordingly  sought  to  solve  the  prob¬ 
lem,  set  going  by  Descartes,  dealt  with  by  all  great 
thinkers,  and  finally  accentuated  in  the  strongest  man¬ 
ner  by  Kant,  by  cutting  the  knot,  that  is,  by  denying 
the  opposition  between  the  two.  With  Kant,  from  whom 
he  professed  to  start,  he  came  in  consequence  into  direct 
contradiction.  Meanwhile  he  had  at  least  held  fast  the 


126 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


original  and  special  sense  of  the  problem,  which  concerns 
the  relation  between  our  perception  and  the  being'  and 
essence  in  themselves  of  the  things  which  present  them¬ 
selves  in  the  former.  But  because  he  got  his  doctrines 
chiefly  out  of  Spinoza,  he  adopted  from  the  latter 
the  expressions  thought  and  being,  which  designated 
the  problem  very  badly,  and  gave  occasion  later  to  the 
maddest  monstrosities.  Spinoza  had  attempted,  with  his 
doctrine,  that  substantia  cogitans  et  substantia  extensa  una 
eademque  est  substantia ,  quce  jam  sub  hoe  jam  sub  illo  at¬ 
tribute  comprehenditur  (ii.  7,  Sch.),  or,  scilicet  mens  et 
corpus  una  eademque  est  res ,  quce  jam  sub  cogitationis ,  jam 
sub  extensionis  attributo  concipitur  (iii.  2,  Sch.),  to  abolish 
the  Cartesian  opposition  of  body  and  soul;  he  may  also 
have  recognized  that  the  empirical  object  is  not  distinct 
from  our  presentment  of  it.  Schelling  adopted  from  him 
the  expressions  thought  and  being,  which  he  gradually 
substituted  for  those  of  intuition  (perception),  or  rather  in¬ 
tuited  (perceived),  and  the  thing-in-itself  ( <(  New  Journal 
of  Speculative  Physic,  *  vol.  i.,  1st  article,  (<  Further  expo¬ 
sitions,  *  etc.).  For  the  relation  of  our  perception  of 
things  to  their  being  and  essence  in  themselves  is  the 
great  problem  whose  history  I  have  here  sketched;  that 
of  our  thoughts,  i.  e .,  conceptions,  is  a  different  one,  for 
these  are,  quite  obviously  and  undeniably,  mere  abstrac¬ 
tions  from  that  which  is  perceptibly  known,  having  arisen 
through  the  arbitrary  thinking  away,  or  letting  fall,  of 
some  qualities,  and  retention  of  others ;  and  to  doubt  that 
this  is  so  would  ever  occur  to  any  reasonable  man. 
These  conceptions,  and  thoughts,  which  constitute  the 
class  of  non-perceptive  presentments,  never  have  there¬ 
fore  an  immediate  relation  to  the  nature  and  being  of 
the  things-in-themselves,  but  are  always  mediate,  that 
is,  under  the  mediation  of  perception ;  it  is  the  last- 
mentioned  which  on  the  one  side  furnishes  for  them  the 
matter,  and  on  the  other  stands  related  to  the  things-in- 
themselves,  that  is,  to  the  unknown  true  nature  of  the 
things  which  is  objectivized  in  perception. 

The  inexact  expression  borrowed  by  Schelling  from 
Spinoza  was  used  subsequently  by  the  spiritless  and  taste¬ 
less  charlatan  Hegel,  who  in  this  respect  appears  as 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  IDEAL  AND  REAL 


127 


Schelling’s  hanswurst,  and  distorted,  so  far  as  to  make 
thought  itself,  in  the  narrower  sense,  namely,  as  concep¬ 
tion,  identical  with  the  nature  of  the  things-in-themselves. 
That,  therefore,  which  is  thought  in  abstractor  should,  as 
such  and  immediately,  be  one  with  that  which  is  objec¬ 
tively  present  in  itself,  and  logic  should,  accordingly,  be 
the  true  metaphysic;  in  which  case  we  should  only  require 
to  think  or  to  let  our  conception  have  free  course  in  order 
to  know  how  the  world  without  is  absolutely  constituted. 
As  a  natural  consequence,  every  brain-phantasm  would  be 
at  once  true  and  real.  Since,  therefore,  <(  the  madder  the 
better®  was  the  motto  of  the  philosophasters  of  this 
period,  the  absurdity  in  question  was  supported  by  a 
second,  to  wit,  that  it  was  not  we  who  thought,  but  that 
the  conception  alone  and  without  our  help  completed  the 
thought  process,  which  is  therefore  called  the  dialectical 
self-movement  of  the  conception,  and  counts  for  a  reve¬ 
lation  of  all  things  in  et  extra  naturam.  But  this  humbug 
was  based  upon  another,  equally  resting  on  the  misuse 
of  words,  and  which  was,  indeed,  never  clearly  stated, 
though  it  undoubtedly  lies  behind.  Schelling  had,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Spinoza’s  procedure,  entitled  the  world  “God.® 
Hegel  took  this  in  its  literal  sense.  Now  since  this  word 
properly  signifies  a  personal  being,  embracing,  together 
with  other  qualities  altogether  incompatible  with  the 
world,  that  of  omniscience,  this  was  also  transferred  by 
him  to  the  world,  in  which  it  could  naturally  obtain  no 
other  place  than  in  the  empty  head  of  men  who  only 
require  to  give  their  thoughts  free  play  (dialectical  self¬ 
movement)  in  order  to  reveal  all  the  mysteries  of  heaven 
and  earth,  as  in  the  absolute  galimatias  of  the  Hege¬ 
lian  dialectic.  One  art  this  Hegel  has  certainly  understood, 
namely,  how  to  lead  the  Germans  by  the  nose.  But  that 
is  no  very  great  one.  We  see  with  what  tricks  he  was 
able  to  hold  the  learned  world  of  Germany  for  thirty 
years.  That  the  professors  of  philosophy  still  treat  these 
three  sophists  seriously,  and  hold  it  for  important  to  as¬ 
sign  them  a  place  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  happens 
only  because  it  belongs  to  their  gagne-pain ,  in  that  they 
obtain  thereby  material  for  elaborate  dissertations,  verbal 
and  written,  on  the  history  of  the  so-called  Post-Kantian 


128 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


philosophy,  in  which  the  opinions  of  the  said  sophists  are 
elaborately  expounded  and  seriously  considered.  From  a 
reasonable  point  of  view,  one  has  no  business  to  concern 
oneself  at  all  with  what  these  persons,  in  order  to  seem 
something,  brought  to  market,  unless  it  were  that  it 
should  be  deemed  desirable  for  the  scribblings  of  Hegel 
to  be  kept  in  the  chemists’  shops  as  a  physically  active 
vomitive,  the  disgust  they  excite  being  really  quite  pecul¬ 
iar.  But  enough  of  them  and  their  originator,  whose 
glorification  we  will  leave  to  the  Danish  Academy  of 
Sciences,  which  has  recognized  in  him  a  summus  philoso- 
pluis,  in  its  sense  of  the  word,  and  hence  requires  him 
to  be  treated  with  respect,  a  fact  brought  out  in  the 
judgment  appended  to  my  prize  essay  on  the  foundations 
of  morality,  as  a  lasting  memorial,  and  which,  no  less  on 
account  of  its  acuteness  than  of  its  memorable  honesty, 
deserves  to  be  rescued  from  oblivion,  if  only  that  it  fur¬ 
nishes  a  remarkable  confirmation  of  Labruyere’s  beautiful 
saying:  (< Du  meme  ponds,  dont  on  neglige  tin  homme  de 
mtrite,  Von  sait  encore  admirer  un  sot.)y 


FRAGMENTS  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF 
PHILOSOPHY. 


Section  i. 

ON  THE  SAME. 

To  read,  instead  of  the  original  works  of  philosophers, 
all  sorts  of  expositions  of  their  doctrines,  or  history  of 
philosophy  generally,  is  as  though  one  should  get  some 
one  else  to  masticate  one’s  food.  Would  anyone  read  the 
history  of  the  world  if  it  were  possible  for  him  to  behold 
the  interesting  events  of  ancient  times  with  his  own  eyes  ? 
But,  as  regards  the  history  of  philosophy,  such  an  autopsy 
of  the  subject  is  really  possible  for  him,  to  wit,  the  origi¬ 
nal  writings  of  philosophers;  in  which  he  may  none  the 
less,  for  the  sake  of  shortness,  limit  himself  to  well-chosen 
leading  chapters,  especially  inasmuch  as  they  all  teem  with 
repetitions,  which  one  may  just  as  well  spare  oneself.  In 
this  way,  then,  he  will  learn  to  know  the  essential  in  their 
doctrines,  in  an  authentic  and  unfalsified  form,  while  from 
the  half-dozen  histories  of  philosophy  annually  appearing 
he  merely  receives  as  much  of  it  as  has  entered  the  head 
of  a  professor  of  philosophy,  and,  indeed,  as  it  appears 
there.  Now  it  is  obvious  of  itself,  that  the  thoughts  of 
a  great  mind  must  shrink  up  considerably  in  order  to 
find  a  place  in  the  three-pound  brain  of  a  parasite  of 
philosophy,  from  which  they  emerge  again  clothed  in  the 
contemporary  jargon  of  the  day,  and  accompanied  by  his 
sapient  reflections.  Besides  this,  it  must  be  considered 
that  the  money-making  history  writer  of  philosophy  can 
hardly  have  read  a  tenth  part  of  the  writings  which  he 
reports.  Their  real  study  demands  the  whole  of  a  long 
and  laborious  life,  such  as  formerly,  in  the  old  industrious 
times,  the  brave  Brucker  devoted  to  them.  But  what  can 
such  persons,  who  are  detained  by  continuous  lectures, 
•official  duties,  vacation  tours  and  dissipations,  and  who,  for 
9  (129) 


13° 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


the  most  part,  come  forward  with  their  histories  of  philos¬ 
ophy  in  their  earlier  years,  have  thoroughly  investigated  ? 
Add  to  this,  that  they  are  anxious  to  be  pragmatical,  and 
claim  to  have  fathomed  and  to  expound  the  necessity  of 
the  origin  and  the  sequence  of  systems,  and  even  to 
judge,  correct,  and  dominate  over  the  earnest  and  genuine 
philosophers  of  former  times.  How  could  it  be  otherwise 
than  that  they  should  copy  the  older  ones,  and  each  other, 
and  then,  in  order  to  hide  this,  make  matters  worse  by 
endeavoring  to  give  them  the  modern  tournure  of  the 
current  quinquennium,  pronouncing  upon  them,  likewise, 
in  the  same  spirit  ?  On  the  contrary,  a  collection  of  im¬ 
portant  passages  and  essential  chapters  of  all  the  leading 
philosophers,  made  by  honest  and  intelligent  scholars, 
conscientiously  and  in  common,  arranged  in  a  chronologic- 
ally-pragmatic  order,  much  in  the  same  way  as  formerly 
Godicke,  and,  after  him,  Ritter  and  Preller,  have  done 
with  the  philosophy  of  antiquity,  although  much  more 
completely  —  in  short,  a  universal  chrestomathy  accom¬ 
plished  with  care  and  a  knowledge  of  the  subject  —  would 
be  very  useful. 

The  fragments  which  I  here  give  are  at  least  not  tra¬ 
ditional,  that  is,  copied;  they  are,  rather,  thoughts  occa¬ 
sioned  by  my  own  study  of  the  original  works. 


Section  2. 

PRE-SOKRATIC  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  Eleatic  philosophers  are  the  first  who  became  con¬ 
scious  of  the  opposition  between  the  perceived  and  the 
thought,  <j>atv6fi£va  and  voou/ieva.  The  latter  alone  was  for 
them  the  true  being,  the  ovtw ?  ov.  Respecting  this,  they 
maintain  that  it  is  one,  unchangeable  and  immovable; 
not  so,  however,  with  the  <f>aivo[iivoi 9,  that  is,  with  the 
perceived,  appearing  empirically  given,  of  which  it  would 
have  been  absurd  to  maintain  anything  of  the  kind  — 
hence  the  so  misunderstood  proposition  refuted  by 
Diogenes  in  his  well-known  manner.  They  already  dis¬ 
tinguished,  therefore,  between  appearance,  fatvS/ievov,  and 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


131 

the  THiNG-iN-iTSELF,  ovto 9  ov.  The  last  mentioned  could 
not  be  senuously  perceived,  but  only  comprehended  by 
thought,  and  was  accordingly  known  as  vooupevov  (Arist., 
w Metaph. , ”  i.,  5,  p.  986,  et  <(  Scholia,®  edit.  Berol.,  pp. 
429,  430,  509).  In  the  <(  Scholia  to  Aristotle”  (pp.  460, 
536,  544,  et  798),  the  work  of  Parmenides,  rd  *ard  86£av  is 
mentioned.  This,  then,  would  have  been  the  doctrine 
of  the  phenomenon,  physics,  which  would,  without  doubt, 
have  implied  another  work,  r a  nar  dfytietav,  the  doctrine  of 
the  thing-in-itself,  or  metaphysic.  Respecting  Melissos, 
indeed,  a  scholium  of  Philoponos  says:  tv  to!$  npds  a^fteiav 
tv  elvat  Myiov  rd  ov ,  tv  roTt  npo?  So£av  800  (should  be  7T o\Xa) 
<pT)o\v  ehat.  The  opposition  to  the  Eleatics,  and  probably 
called  forth  by  them,  is  Herakleitos,  who  taught  the  cease¬ 
less  movement  of  all  things,  as  they  taught  their  absolute 
immobility.  He  took  his  stand,  therefore,  on  the  <patvopevov 
( <(  Arist.  d.  Coelo,”  iii.  1,  p.  298,  edit.  Berol.).  He 
called  forth  thereby  as  his  opposite,  Plato’s  doctrine  of 
Ideas,  as  appears  from  the  statement  of  Aristotle  ( (<  Me¬ 
taph.,”  p.  1078). 

It  is  noteworthy  that  we  find  the  comparatively  few  main 
propositions  of  the  Pre-Sokratic  philosophers  which  have 
been  preserved,  numberless  times  repeated  in  the  writ¬ 
ings  of  the  ancients,  but  very  little  beyond  them;  as, 
for  instance,  the  doctrines  of  Anaxagoras,  of  the  voo?  and 
of  the  6poiop.£piai ;  that  of  Empedokles,  of  tydia  kcu  veUo 9  and 
the  four  elements;  that  of  Demokritos  and  Lukippos,  of 
the  atoms,  dduiloi?;  that  of  Herakleitos,  of  the  continuous 
flux  of  all  things;  that  of  the  Eleatics,  as  above  explained; 
that  of  the  Pythagoreans,  of  the  numbers,  of  metempsy¬ 
chosis,  etc.  It  may  well  be,  therefore,  that  this  was  the 
sum  of  all  their  philosophizing;  for  we  find  also  in  the 
works  of  the  moderns,  e.g .,  of  Descartes,  Spinoza,  Leib¬ 
nitz,  and  even  Kant,  the  few  fundamental  propositions 
of  their  philosophies  numberless  times  repeated;  so  that 
all  these  philosophers  would  seem  to  have  adopted  the 
motto  of  Empedokles,  who  may  also  have  been  a  lover  of 
the  sign  of  repetition,  <5i?  na)  r p\$  to  nakov  (see  Sturz., 

<(  Empedocl.  Agrigent. , ”  p.  504). 

The  two  dogmas  Anaxagoras  started  stand  in  close 
connection,  nav-ra  tv  Tzaaiv  is,  namely,  a  symbolical  desig- 


132 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


nation  of  the  dogma  of  the  homoiomeroi.  In  the  primal 
chaotic  mass,  accordingly,  the  partes  similar es  (in  the 
physiological  sense)  of  all  things  were  present  in  their 
completeness.  In  order  to  their  differentiation,  and  to 
their  combination  into  specifically  distinct  things  ( partes 
dissimilar e s) ,  it  required  a  vov$  to  arrange  and  to  form 
them,  who  by  a  selection  of  the  elements,  reduced  con¬ 
fusion  to  order,  since  this  chaos  contained  the  most  com¬ 
plete  mixture  of  all  substances  (®  Scholia  in  Aristot. , w  p. 
337).  Nevertheless  the  voD?  had  not  brought  the  first 
separation  to  complete  perfection,  and  therefore  in  every¬ 
thing  was  contained  the  elements  of  everything  else, 
although  in  a  lesser  degree:  ir dfov  ydp  nav  £v  -avn  pepcuTat 
{Ibid). 

Empedokles,  on  the  other  hand,  instead  of  the  number¬ 
less  homoiomeroi,  had  only  four  elements,  from  which 
the  things  proceeded  as  products,  not  as  with  Anax¬ 
agoras  as  educts.  The  negating  and  separating,  that  is 
ordering,  role  of  the  vou?  is,  according  to  him,  played  by 
<pdta  Kai  veIko?,  love  and  hate.  Both  of  these  are  very 
much  better.  For  here  not  the  intellect  (vou?)  but  the 
will  ( <t>dta  k a)  veTko 9)  has  the  ordering  of  things  assigned 
to  it,  and  the  variety  of  substances  are  not,  as  with 
Anaxagoras,  mere  educts,  but  real  products.  While 
Anaxagoras  makes  them  realized  by  a  separating  under¬ 
standing,  Empedokles  does  so  by  a  blind  impulse,  i.e.,  a 
knowledgeless  will. 

Empedokles  is  altogether  a  thorough  man,  and  his 
<pdia  Kai  ve~cko$  has  for  its  basis  a  deep  and  true  appercu. 
Even  in  inorganic  nature  we  see  the  elements  unite  and 
separate,  seek  or  flee  from  each  other,  according  to  the 
laws  of  elective  affinity.  But  those  that  show  the  strong¬ 
est  disposition  to  unite  themselves  chemically,  which  can 
only  be  effected  in  a  state  of  fluidity,  assume  an  attitude 
of  the  most  decisive  electrical  antagonism  when  they 
come  into  contact  with  one  another  in  a  solid  state — now 
they  separate  in  opposed  and  mutually  hostile  polarities, 
now  they  again  seek  and  embrace  each  other ;  and  what, 
I  ask,  is  that  polar  antagonism  which  appears  throughout 
all  nature  in  the  most  diverse  forms,  other  than  a  con¬ 
tinually  renewed  quarrel,  upon  which  the  earnestly 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


133 


desired  reconciliation  follows  ?  So  <pd(a  nai  vet/co?  is  every¬ 
where  present,  and,  according  to  circumstances,  first  one 
and  then  the  other  displays  itself  at  different  times.  We 
ourselves  even  may  be  immediately  impressed  in  a 
friendly  or  a  hostile  sense  with  any  human  being  that 
comes  near  us  —  the  disposition  to  either  is  there  and 
waits  on  circumstances.  It  is  only  prudence  that  induces 
us  to  tarry  on  the  indifference  point  of  impartiality, 
which  is  also,  be  it  said,  the  freezing  point.  In  the  same 
way,  the  strange  dog  which  we  approach  is  ready  at  once 
to  adopt  the  friendly  or  the  hostile  key,  and  changes 
easily  from  barking  and  growling  to  wagging,  and  vice 
versd.  What  lies  at  the  foundation  of  this  all  penetrat¬ 
ing  phenomenon  of  the  <pd(a  kou  veUos  is  assuredly,  at 
bottom,  the  great  primal  opposition  between  the  unity  of 
all  natures,  according  to  their  being  in  themselves  and 
their  complete  distinction  in  the  phenomenon,  which  has 
for  its  form  the  principiuui  individuationis.  Similarly, 
Empedokles  recognized  the  doctrine  of  atoms,  already 
known  to  him,  as  false,  and  taught  on  the  contrary,  the 
infinite  divisibility  of  bodies,  as  Lucretius  tells  us  (lib.  i., 
v.,  747,  etc.). 

But  above  all  things  in  the  doctrines  of  Empedokles, 
his  decided  pessimism  is  noteworthy.  He  has  fully  recog¬ 
nized  the  misery  of  our  existence,  and  the  world  is  for 
him  as  much  as  for  the  true  Christian  a  vale  of  sorrows, 
yArt]<;  Xecfuuv.  He  compares  it,  indeed,  like  Plato  later,  to  a 
dark  cavern,  in  which  we  are  immured.  In  our  earthly 
existence  he  sees  a  state  of  banishment  and  misery,  and 
the  body  is  the  prison  of  the  soul.  These  souls  were 
once  in  a  state  of  infinite  happiness,  and  have  through 
their  own  fault  and  sins  reached  the  present  wretchedness 
wherein  they,  by  sinful  conduct,  more  and  more  entangle 
themselves,  getting  involved  in  the  circle  of  metempsy¬ 
chosis;  while,  on  the  contrary,  by  virtue  and  moral  pu¬ 
rity,  to  which  the  abstinence  from  animal  food  belongs, 
and  by  renunciation  of  earthly  enjoyments  and  wishes, 
they  may  again  attain  to  their  previous  condition.  Thus 
the  same  primal  wisdom  which  constitutes  the  basal 
thought  of  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism,  and  even  of  true 
Christianity  (by  which  is  not  to  be  understood  the 


134 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


optimistic  Jewish-Protestant  rationalism),  was  also  brought 
into  consciousness  by  this  ancient  Greek,  who  completes 
the  consensus  gentium  on  the  subject.  That  Empedokles, 
whom  the  ancients  throughout  designated  a  Pythagorean, 
received  this  view  from  Pythagoras  is  probable,  particu¬ 
larly  as  at  bottom  it  is  shared  by  Plato  who  was  also 
under  the  influence  of  Pythagoras.  Empedokles  declares  his 
adherence  most  distinctly  to  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis, 
which  is  connected  with  this  view  of  the  world.  The 
passages  in  the  ancients  which,  together  with  his  own 
verses,  bear  witness  to  this  conception  of  Empedokles,  are 
to  be  found  collected,  with  great  industry  in  Sturzzi, 
(<  Empedocles  Agrigentinus,®  pp.  448-458.  The  opinion 
that  the  body  is  a  prison  and  life  a  condition  of  suffering 
and  purification  from  which  we  are  released  by  death,  if 
we  are  but  quit  of  the  soul-wandering,  is  shared  by 
Egyptians,  Pythagoreans,  and  Empedokles,  together  with 
the  Hindoos  and  Buddhists.  With  the  exception  of 
metempsychosis  it  is  also  contained  in  Christianity. 
Diodorus  Siculus  and  Cicero  also  bear  witness  to  the 
above  views  of  the  ancients.  (See  “Wernsdorf  de  metemp- 
sychosi  veterum,®  p.  31,  and  <(  Cicero  fragmenta,®  p.  299 
[“  Somn.  Scip.,®  310,  319,  ed.  Bip.])  Cicero  does  not  indi¬ 
cate  in  these  passages  to  what  philosophical  school  they 
belong,  but  they  would  seem  to  be  remains  of  Pythagorean 
wisdom. 

In  the  remaining  doctrines  of  these  Pre-Sokratic  phi¬ 
losophers  there  is  also  much  that  is  true  to  be  pointed 
out,  of  which  I  will  give  some  illustrations. 

According  to  the  cosmogony  of  Kant  and  Laplace  — 
which  has  received  a  practical  confirmation,  a  posteriori, 
in  the  observations  of  Herschel,  and  which  Lord  Ross  is 
concerned,  to  the  consolation  of  English  clericalism,  again 
to  render  doubtful  by  means  of  his  giant  telescope  —  the 
planetary  systems  form  themselves  by  the  condensation 
of  slowly  coagulating  and  then  revolving  luminous  neb¬ 
ulae,  and  thus,  after  thousands  of  years,  Anaximenes  is 
justified  when  he  declared  air  and  vapor  for  the  primal 
elements  of  all  things  (<(Schol.  in  Arist.,®  p.  514).  At 
the  same  time,  also,  Empedokles  and  Demokritos  received 
confirmation,  for  they,  like  Laplace,  explained  the  origin 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


i35 


and  constitution  of  the  world  from  a  vortex  dcvy  (<(  Arist. 
Op.*  ed.  Berol.,  p.  295,  et  <(  Scholia,*  p.  351),  at  which 
Aristophanes  ((<Nubes,*  v.  820)  mocks  as  blasphemy; 
just  as  do  the  English  priests  to-day  over  the  Laplacian 
theory,  they  being  anxious  respecting  their  benefices,  as 
they  always  are  when  a  new  truth  comes  to  light.  Our 
modern  chemistry  indeed  carries  us  back  to  the  Pytha¬ 
gorean  philosophy  of  numbers:  ra  yap  Tta&-q  k a\  at 
twv  apiOpctiv  r u>v  iv  ro7y  olac  izad-wv  re  na\  t^ewv  afrta,  oTtov  to 
dinXd(Tiov)  to  kniTpiTov,  to  ypuohov  (  <(  Schol.  in  Arist.  ,*  p. 
543  et  829).  That  the  Kopernican  system  was  antici¬ 
pated  by  the  Pythagoreans  is  well  known;  it  was  even 
known  to  Kopernicus  himself,  who  drew  his  chief  ideas 
from  the  well-known  passage  on  Hiketas,  in  Cicero’s 
(<  Questionibus  Acad.*  (ii.  39),  and  from  Philolaos  in 
Plutarch,  <(De  placitis  Philosophorum *  (lib.  iii.,  c.  13). 
This  important  insight  was  afterward  rejected  by  Aris¬ 
totle,  in  order  that  he  might  put  his  whims  in  the  place 
of  it,  as  to  which,  see  below,  §  5  (compare  <(World  as 
Will  and  Presentment,*  ii.,  p.  342  of  the  2d  ed. ;  ii.,  p. 
390,  3d  ed.).  Even  Fourier’s  and  Cordier’s  discoveries 
on  the  heat  in  the  interior  of  the  earth  are  confirmations 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  ancients:  ihyov  ol  Iluftayopeioi  nuj> 
ehai  dTjpuoupytKov  7rep).  to  piaov  na'i  KivTpov  rjyy  y9j?  to  avaftaXnov 
t ijv  y^v  itai  Z(oot:oioov  ( (<  Schol.  in  Arist.,*  p.  504).  And 
in  consequence  of  these  discoveries,  the  crust  of  the 
earth  to-day  is  looked  upon  as  a  thin  layer  between  two 
media  (atmosphere  and  hot  fluid  metals  and  metalloids) 
whose  contact  would  occasion  a  conflagration  that  would 
annihilate  that  crust,  also  confirming  the  opinion  in  which 
all  the  ancient  philosophers  agree,  and  which  is  shared 
even  by  the  Hindoos  ( (<Lettres  ddifiantes,  *  ddit.  de  1819, 
vol.  vii.,  p.  1 14)  that  the  world  will  finally  be  consumed 
by  fire.  It  is  also  deserving  of  mention  that,  as  may  be 
seen  from  Aristotle  (<(Metaph.,*  i.,  5,  p.  986),  the  Pytha¬ 
goreans,  under  the  name  of  SUa  ap^ai,  had  conceived  the 
yn  and  yang  of  the  Chinese. 

That  the  metaphysics  of  music,  as  explained  by  me  in 
my  chief  work  (vol.  i.,  §  52,  and  vol.  ii.,  chap.  39)  must 
be  regarded  as  an  exposition  of  the  Pythagorean  philos¬ 
ophy  of  numbers,  I  have  already  shortly  indicated,  and 


136 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


will  here  somewhat  further  explain  —  presupposing,  at 
the  same  time,  in  the  reader  an  acquaintance  with  the 
passages  referred  to.  In  accordance  with  the  above, 
melody  expresses  all  movements  of  the  will  such  as  are 
made  known  in  human  consciousness,  that  is,  all  affec¬ 
tions,  feelings,  etc. ;  harmony,  again,  denotes  the  ladder 
of  the  objectivation  of  the  will  in  the  rest  of  nature. 
Music  is,  in  this  sense,  a  second  reality,  which  runs  en¬ 
tirely  parallel  with  the  first,  although  it  is  of  quite  another 
kind  and  character,  so  that  while  it  has  a  complete  anal¬ 
ogy  it  has  no  similarity  with  it — music,  as  such,  existing 
only  in  our  auditory  nerves  and  brain.  Outside  these, 
or  in  itself  ( understood  in  the  Lockean  sense )  it  consists 
in  mere  relations  of  tones  directly,  that  is,  in  respect  of 
quantity,  in  rhythm,  and  in  respect  of  quality,  in  the 
intervals  of  the  scales  which  rest  on  the  arithmetical 
relation  of  vibrations;  in  other  words,  numerical  as  it  is 
in  its  rhythmical  element,  so  is  it  also  in  its  harmonic 
element. 

The  whole  nature  of  the  world,  therefore,  as  well  of 
the  microcosm  as  of  the  macrocosm,  may  be  certainly 
expressed  by  mere  numerical  relations,  and  is,  therefore, 
reducible  to  these.  And  in  this  sense  Pythagoras  was 
right  in  placing  the  proper  nature  of  things  in  numbers. 
But  what  now  are  numbers  ?  Relations  of  succession 
whose  possibility  is  based  on  time. 

When  one  reads  what  is  said  about  the  number-philos¬ 
ophy  of  the  Pythagoreans  in  the  (<  Scholia  to  Aristotle  ® 
(p.  829,  ed.,  Berol.)  one  might  be  led  to  the  supposition, 
that  the  use  of  the  word  Myo?  in  the  introduction  to  the 
gospel  ascribed  to  John,  so  strange  and  mysterious  and  verg¬ 
ing  on  the  absurd,  as  also  the  earlier  and  analogous  pas¬ 
sages  in  Philo,  originate  in  the  Pythagorean  philosophy  of 
numbers,  from  the  signification,  that  is,  of  the  word  Myo? 
in  the  arithmetical  sense,  as  numerical  relation,  ratio 
numerica.  Such  a  relation  constitutes,  with  the  Pytha¬ 
goreans,  the  innermost  and  indestructible  essence  of 
every  being;  in  other  words,  its  first  and  original  prin¬ 
ciple  ap/rj;  whence  of  everything  might  be  said,  ap'/rj 
rjv  6  Xoyos.  It  should  be  noted  also  that  Aristotle  says 
((<  De  Anima,”  i.  1) :  r a  Ttdftrj  Myoi  huXoi  doi ,  et  viox:  6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


137 


yap  X6yo<i  elSo?  too  npayparog.  One  is  also  reminded  here  of 
the  X6yo<i  ffreppazuios  of  the  Stoics,  to  which  I  shall  shortly 
return. 

According  to  Jamblichos’  biography  of  Pythagoras,  the 
latter  owed  his  education  chiefly  to  Egypt,  where  he 
remained  from  his  twenty-second  to  his  fifty-sixth  year, 
and,  indeed,  to  the  Egyptian  priests.  Returning  in  his 
fifty-sixth  year,  he  had  conceived  the  project  of  found¬ 
ing  a  kind  of  priestly  state,  in  imitation  of  the  Egyptian 
temple  hierarchies,  of  course,  with  the  modifications 
necessary  to  Greeks;  and  though  he  did  not  succeed  in 
this  in  his  fatherland,  Samos,  he  did,  to  a  certain  extent, 
in  Krotona.  Now,  as  Egyptian  culture  and  religion, 
without  doubt,  came  from  India,  as  is  proved  by  the 
sanctity  of  the  cow,  together  with  a  hundred  other  things 
(tt  Herod., ®  ii. ,  41),  this  would  also  explain  the  regulation 
of  Pythagoras  respecting  abstinence  from  animal  nourish¬ 
ment,  especially  the  prohibition  of  slaughtering  oxen 
(Jambl.,  <(Vit.  Puith.,®  c.  28,  §  150),  as  also  the  con¬ 
sideration  for  all  animals  which  is  enjoined;  similarly, 
also,  his  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  his  white  robes, 
his  eternal  mystification,  which  gave  rise  to  symbolical 
modes  of  speech,  and  even  extended  itself  to  mathe- 
mathical  theorems ;  yet,  again,  the  foundation  of  a  priestly 
caste,  strict  discipline  and  much  ceremonial,  the  worship 
of  the  sun  (c.  35,  §  256),  and  many  other  things.*  His 
most  important  astronomical  principles  he  had  also  from 
the  Egyptians.  Hence  the  priority  of  his  doctrine  of  the 
inclination  of  the  ecliptic  was  disputed  by  CEnopides, 
who  had  been  with  him  in  Egypt.  (Consult,  as  to  this, 
the  conclusion  of  the  24th  chapter  of  the  1st  book  of 
the  <(  Eklogues  of  Stobaeos,  ®  with  Heeren’s  note  from 
Diodorus.)  From  the  rest,  when  one  looks  through  the 
elementary  notions  of  astronomy  collected  by  Stobaeos 
from  all  the  Greek  philosophers  (especially  lib.  i.,  c.  25), 

*It  may  be  well  to  remind  the  reader  that  Schopenhauer’s  state¬ 
ments  as  to  the  origin  of  Egyptian  civilization  are  in  no  way  borne 
out  by  the  results  of  recent  research.  The  coincidences  mentioned 
by  Schopenhauer  might  be  extended  to  most  early  civilizations,  and 
do  not  by  any  means  give  color  to  the  farfetched  hypothesis  of  the 
borrowing  of  the  ancient  Egyptian  culture  from  India.  The  Egyptian 
civilization  is  undoubtedly  of  greater  antiquity  than  the  Indian. — Tr. 


138 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


one  finds  that  they  have  produced  mere  absurdities, 
with  the  single  exception  of  the  Pythagoreans,  who, 
as  a  rule,  are  quite  correct.  That  this  is  not  their 
own  invention,  but  comes  from  Egypt,  is  not  to  be 
doubted.  The  well-known  prohibition  of  Pythagoras 
respecting  beans  is  of  purely  Egyptian  origin,  and  merely 
a  superstition  derived  from  thence,  since  Herodotus  (ii., 
37),  relates  that  in  Egypt  the  bean  is  considered  unclean 
and  abhorred,  so  that  the  priests  will  not  even  tolerate 
the  sight  of  it. 

That  the  doctrine  of  Pythagoras  is  a  decided  panthe¬ 
ism  is  proved  as  conclusively  as  briefly  by  a  sentence  of 
the  Pythagoreans,  preserved  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  con¬ 
tained  in  the  <(  Hortatio  ad  gentes ,  ®  the  Doric  dialect  of 
which  points  to  its  genuineness:  Om  dnoKpuTzzeov  ot>Sk  rob 9 
dp<j>\  zov  Ilu8ay6pavy  01  tyafftv'  c0pkv  tied?  el?*  •/  ouzo 9  8k  <09 

vtz ovooufftv,  kuzos  ra?  ScaKoaprjffco?,  a>M’  kv  abza ,  0^09  kv  oXu) 
zio  kukXu),  kizitTKoxos  Tzdaa 9  yeviazo?,  uparris  za>v  ofwv1  del  aiv,  /cal 
kpyazas  z<bv  auzob  8uvdpnov  Kai  kpyiov  anavzwv  kv  ovpdvw  <jHu<TZY)p} 
Kai  xdvziov  z:azrjpy  V0D9  /cal  i/’u^ioai^  zui  0X10  kui cAw,  n dvziuv  /ccVaat9. 
(See  <(Clem.  Alex.  Opera,”  tom.  i.,  p.  118,  in  <(  Sanctorum 
Patrum  Oper.  Polem.,”  vol.  iv.,  Wirceburgi,  1778.)  It  is 
good,  namely,  to  convince  oneself  at  every  opportunity 
that,  properly  speaking,  Theism  and  Judaism  are  ex¬ 
changeable  terms. 

According  to  Apuleius,  Pythagoras  got  as  far  as  India, 
and  was  even  instructed  by  the  Brahmins.  (See  Apuleius, 
“Florida,”  p.  130,  ed.  Bip.)  I  believe,  nevertheless,  that 
the  assuredly  considerable  wisdom  and  knowledge  of 
Pythagoras  consisted,  not  so  much  in  what  he  thought, 
as  in  what  he  learned,  was  not  so  much  his  own,  that  is, 
as  of  foreign  origin.  This  is  confirmed  by  a  saying  of 
Herakleitos  ( <(Diog.  Laert.,”  lib.  viii.,  c.  1,  §5).  Other¬ 
wise  he  would  have  written  it  down  in  order  to  rescue 
his  thoughts  from  oblivion;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
what  was  learned  from  abroad  was  safe  enough  at  the 
fountain-head. 


Section  3. 


SOKRATES. 

The  wisdom  of  Sokrates  is  an  article  of  philosophic 
faith.  That  the  Platonic  Sokrates  was  an  ideal  and 
therefore  poetical  person,  who  enunciated  Platonic 
thoughts,  is  perfectly  clear,  but  in  the  Xenophontic  Soc¬ 
rates  there  is  not  precisely  very  much  wisdom  to 
be  found.  According  to  Lukian  (<(  Philo.  Pseudes,”  24), 
Sokrates  had  a  fat  belly,  which  does  not  belong  to  the 
signs  of  genius.  But  it  is  just  as  doubtful  as  to  the  high 
mental  powers  of  all  those  who  have  not  written,  and 
hence  also  of  Pythagoras.  A  great  mind  must  gradually 
recognize  his  calling  and  his  position  toward  humanity, 
and  consequently  attain  to  the  conviction  that  he  does 
not  belong  to  the  flock,  but  to  the  shepherds  —  to  the 
educators,  that  is,  of  the  human  race.  But  from  this 
the  obligation  becomes  clear  not  to  limit  his  immediate 
and  certain  action  to  the  few  which  chance  brings  into 
his  neighborhood,  but  to  extend  it  to  humanity,  in  order 
that  it  may  reach  the  exceptions,  the  elect,  in  the  latter. 
But  the  only  organ  with  which  one  speaks  to  humanity 
is  writing;  verbally  one  addresses  only  a  number  of  in¬ 
dividuals,  and  therefore  anything  so  said,  remains,  as  far 
as  the  human  race  is  concerned,  a  private  matter.  For 
such  individuals  are  generally  a  bad  soil  for  the  best 
seed,  which  either  does  not  influence  them  at  all,  or  else 
what  it  produces  rapidly  degenerates.  The  seed  itself, 
therefore,  must  be  preserved,  and  this  cannot  be  done 
through  tradition,  which  is  falsified  at  every  step,  but 
solely  through  writing,  the  only  true  preserver  of  thoughts. 
Add  to  this,  that  every  deep-thinking  mind  necessarily 
has  the  impulse,  for  the  sake  of  its  own  satisfaction,  to 
retain  its  thoughts  and  reduce  them  to  the  greatest  pos¬ 
sible  clearness  and  definition,  and  consequently  to  em¬ 
body  them  in  words.  But  this  is  only  perfectly  attained 
in  writing,  for  the  written  delivery  is  essentially  different 
from  the  verbal,  since  it  alone  admits  the  highest  pre- 

(139) 


140 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


cision,  concision,  and  the  most  pregnant  brevity,  thus 
becoming  a  pure  ektypos  of  thought.  In  consequence  of 
all  this,  it  would  be  a  marvelous  conceit  in  any  thinker 
to  wish  to  leave  the  most  important  invention  of  the 
human  race  unutilized.  For  this  reason,  it  is  hard  for 
me  to  believe  in  the  really  great  intellect  of  those  who 
have  not  written.  I  am  rather  disposed  to  hold  them  to 
have  been  mainly  practical  heroes,  who  effected  more  by 
their  character  than  by  their  brains.  The  majestic  authors 
of  the  <(  Upanishads  of  the  Vedas®  have  written,  though 
the  <(  Sanhita  of  the  Vedas,®  consisting  as  it  does  merely 
of  prayers,  may  originally  have  been  only  verbally 
propagated. 

Between  Sokrates  and  Kant  many  parallels  may  be 
drawn.  Both  reject  all  dogmatism;  both  profess  a  com¬ 
plete  ignorance  in  matters  of  metaphysic  and  make  their 
speciality  the  clear  consciousness  of  this  ignorance.  Both 
maintain  that  the  practical,  that  which  man  has  to  do  and 
to  forbear,  is,  on  the  other  hand,  perfectly  certain  of  itself 
without  any  further  theoretical  foundation.  Both  had  the 
fortune,  that  their  immediate  successors  and  declared  dis¬ 
ciples  broke  away  from  them  precisely  on  these  principles, 
and,  elaborating  a  metaphysic,  established  thoroughly 
dogmatic  systems;  and  further,  that  these  systems  turned 
out  very  diverse,  and  yet  all  agreed  in  maintaining  that 
they  started  from  the  doctrines  of  Sokrates  or  Kant,  as 
the  case  might  be.  As  I  am  myself  a  Kantian,  I  will  here 
notify  my  relation  to  him  in  one  word.  Kant  teaches  that 
we  cannnot  know  anything  beyond  experience  and  its  pos¬ 
sibility.  I  admit  this,  but  maintain  that  experience  itself, 
in  its  totality,  is  susceptible  of  an  explanation  which  I 
have  endeavored  to  give  by  deciphering  it  like  a  writing, 
and  not,  as  with  all  earlier  philosophers,  by  undertaking 
to  transcend  it  by  means  of  its  mere  forms,  a  method 
Kant  had  proved  to  be  invalid. 

The  advantage  of  the  Sokratic  method,  as  we  learn  it 
from  Plato,  consists  in  that  the  foundation  of  the  propo¬ 
sitions,  which  are  intended  to  be  proved  by  the  collocutor 
or  opponent,  are  admitted  singly  before  their  conse¬ 
quences  are  seen.  Since,  however,  in  a  didactic  delivery 
in  continuous  speech,  consequences  and  grounds  are  able 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY  141 

to  be  seen  at  once,  one  would  attack  them  if  they  did 
not  please  one.  Meanwhile,  among  the  things  which 
Plato  would  impose  upon  us  is  this  —  to  wit,  that  by  means 
of  the  application  of  this  method,  the  Sophists  and  other 
fools  had  in  all  innocence  let  Sokrates  prove  to  them 
that  they  were  such.  This  is  incredible ;  it  is  much  more 
likely  that,  at  the  last  quarter  of  the  way,  or  as  soon  as 
they  noticed  what  he  was  driving  at,  they  would,  by 
manoeuvres  denying  what  had  previously  been  said,  in¬ 
tentional  misunderstandings  and  such  other  tricks  and 
dodges  as  are  employed  instinctively  by  dishonesty 
desirous  of  justifying  itself,  have  spoiled  the  artificially- 
planned  game  of  Sokrates  and  torn  his  net,  or  they 
would  have  become  so  rude  and  insulting,  that  he  would 
have  found  it  advisable  to  save  his  skin  betimes.  For 
why  should  not  the  Sophists  have  understood  the  method 
by  which  everyone  can  make  himself  equal  to  everyone 
else,  and  for  the  moment  bring  himself  to  the  level  of 
the  greatest  intellectual  eminence  —  namely,  insult? 
The  low  nature  indeed  feels  an  instinctive  inclination 
to  this  as  soon  as  it  begins  to  detect  intellectual  supe¬ 
riority. 


Section  4. 

PLATO. 

Already  in  Plato  we  find  the  origin  of  a  certain  false 
dianoialogy,  which  is  put  forward  with  a  secret  meta¬ 
physical  purpose,  namely,  for  the  behoof  of  a  rational 
psychology  and  a  doctrine  of  immortality  depending  on 
it.  It  has  proved  itself  again  and  again  as  a  deceptive 
doctrine  of  the  toughest  vitality,  dragging  on  its  exist¬ 
ence  as  it  has  throughout  the  whole  of  ancient,  mediaeval, 
and  modern  philosophy,  till  Kant,  the  all-destroyer, 
finally  knocked  it  on  the  head.  The  doctrine  here  re¬ 
ferred  to  is  the  rationalism  of  the  theory  of  knowledge 
with  its  metaphysical  purpose.  It  may  be  summed  up 
shortly  as  follows:  That  which  knows  in  us  is  an  imma¬ 
terial  substance,  fundamentally  distinct  from  the  body. 


142 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


called  Soul;  the  body  being  a  hindrance  to  knowledge. 
Hence  all  knowledge  through  the  senses  is  deceptive,  the 
only  true,  accurate,  and  certain  knowledge  being  that 
which  is  free  and  removed  from  all  sensibility  (z. e.  from 
all  perception),  in  other  words,  pure  thought,  or  that 
which  functions  exclusively  by  means  of  abstract  con¬ 
ceptions.  For  this  instructs  the  soul  entirely  by  its  own 
methods,  and  consequently  will  work  best  after  it  is  sep¬ 
arated  from  the  body,  that  is,  after  we  are  dead.  In 
such  wise,  therefore,  dianoialogy  plays  into  the  hands  of 
rational  psychology  to  the  benefit  of  its  doctrine  of  im¬ 
mortality.  This  doctrine  which  I  have  here  summed  up,  we 
find  fully  and  clearly  in  the  (<  Phsedo,  ®  chap.  x.  It  is 
somewhat  differently  conceived  in  the  (<  Timseus, ®  from 
which  Sextus  Empiricus  expounds  it  very  precisely  and 
clearly  in  the  following  words:  IlaXaid  Tty  napa  roTy  qlhtuwcs 
KuXierat  86£a  nep'i  rob  t a  opo'ia  tu>v  opoiutv  elvou  yvcopiGTind.  Mox: 
IJXarcbv  8k,  kv  ru>  Ttpaiu) ,  xpo?  Tzapaazaaiv  too  dawpazov  elvat  zrjv 
<J’Okt]v,  tu>  aoTU>  ylvet  rijy  anodeisews  Kl^prjzai.  El  yap  rj  pkv 
opaats,  <prj<rcf  (jxoTOi  dvziXap(3avoplv7j ,  eofto?  kazi  <pwTO£t8ij<z,  ij  8k  duorj 
dlpa  tt £7i Xrjyfiivov  K^tvooaa,  onep  £<tti  ttjv  ipwvijv,  euduy  depoeiSrjs 
bewpetzat,  ij  8k  o<T<pp7]<rt$  dzpob$  yvmpiZooaa  Tcdvzco y  kazi  dzpoetSrjs, 
Kai  rj  yebffts  /oXob?,  xuAoetSrjs'  /car’  dvaynrjv  Ka'i  ij  <l>oyij  ray  d<rwpdzoo<i 
I8ia$  Xapftavooaa ,  naildnep  ray  kv  zo'i<;  dpi&po~i<i  *at  ray  kv  zol$ 
itkpaai  twv  aiopazwv  (that  is,  pure  mathematics)  ylvezat  Tty 
dawpaTo<t  (<(  Adv.  Math. ,®  vii.,  116  et  119).  (Vetus  quce- 
dam ,  a  physicis  usque  probata ,  versatur  opinio ,  quod  similia 
similibus  cognoscantur. —  Mox:  Plato ,  in  Timceo,  ad  pro- 
bandum ,  animan  esse  incorpoream ,  usus  est  eodcm  genere 
demonstration is:  (<  nam  si  visio, ®  inquit,  <(  apprehendens  lu¬ 
cent  statim  est  luminosa,  auditus  autem  a'erem  percussum 
judicans ,  nempe  vocem ,  protinus  cernitur  ad  aeris  accedens 
speciem ,  odoratus  autem  cognoscens  vapor es,  est  omnino  va- 
poris  aliquam  habens  formant ,  et  gustus,  qui  humores,  hu- 
moris  habens  speciem ;  necessario  et  anima,  ideas  suscipiens 
incorporeas ,  ut  qua  sunt  in  numeris  et  in  finibus  corporum, 
est  incorporea.  ®) 

Even  Aristotle  admits  this  argument,  at  least  hypothetic- 
ally,  where,  in  the  first  book  of  the  (<  De  Anima  ®  (c.  i.), 
he  says  that  the  separate  existence  of  the  soul  would  be 
thereby  constituted  if  any  manifestation  in  which  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


143 


body  had  no  part  accrued  to  it,  and  that  such  a  mani¬ 
festation  seemed  above  all  things  to  be  Thought.  But  if 
even  this  is  not  possible  without  perception  and  imagi¬ 
nation,  it  cannot  obtain  without  the  body  (e?  Si  Igti  not 
to  voeTv  <pavraff{a  r t?,  r]  ft?]  aveu  tyavTaaias,  oun  ivSi^ocr  otv  ouSe 
tovto  aveo  Gw/xaro?  el  vat).  Yet  Aristotle  does  not  even  admit 
the  above  conditions,  which  are  the  premises  of  the 
argumentation,  in  so  far,  namely,  as  he  teaches  what  was 
later  formulated  in  the  proposition,  nihil  est  in  intellectu , 
quod  non  prius  fuerit  in  sensibus.  (See,  as  to  this,  <(  De 
Anima,”  iii. ,  8.)  Even  he  saw,  therefore,  that  all  that  is 
purely  and  abstractly  thought  has  first  borrowed  its  en¬ 
tire  material  and  content  from  the  perceived.  This  also 
disturbed  the  Schoolmen,  and  hence,  even  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  men  endeavored  to  prove  that  there  are  pure  cog¬ 
nitions  of  reason  —  that  is,  thoughts  having  no  reference 
to  any  images;  in  other  words,  a  thought  which  draws 
all  its  material  from  itself.  The  efforts  and  controversies 
on  this  point  are  to  be  found  collected  in  Pomponasius, 
who  derives  his  main  argument  from  them.  In  order  to 
answer  the  requirement  spoken  of,  the  universalia  and 
the  cognitions  a  priori ,  conceived  as  ceternce  veritates,  had 
to  serve.  The  development  which  the  matter  received 
through  Descartes  and  his  school  I  have  already  explained 
in  the  elaborate  observation  appended  to  section  six  of  my 
prize  essay  on  the  foundation  of  morals,  in  which  I  have 
adduced  the  valuable  original  words  of  the  Cartesian  De  la 
Forge  —  for  one  finds  the  false  doctrines  of  a  philosopher 
as  a  rule  expressed  the  clearest  by  his  disciples,  since  these 
are  not,  like  the  master  himself,  concerned  to  keep  in  the 
background  as  much  as  possible  those  sides  of  his  system 
which  might  betray  its  weakness,  inasmuch  as  they  have 
no  fear  about  it.  But  Spinoza  opposed  to  the  whole 
Cartesian  dualism  his  doctrine  substantia  cogitans  et  sub¬ 
stantia  extensa  tma  eademque  est  substantia ,  qua;  jam  sub 
hoc ,  jam  sub  illo  attributo  comprehenditur,  thereby  show¬ 
ing  his  great  superiority.  Leibnitz,  on  the  other  hand, 
remained  exquisitely  on  ihe  path  of  Descartes  and  ortho¬ 
doxy.  But  this  again  called  out  the,  for  philosophy,  so 
thoroughly  healthy  endeavor  of  the  excellent  Locke,  who 
finally  plunged  into  the  investigation  of  the  origin  of 


144 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


conceptions,  and  made  the  phrase  no  innate  ideas,  after 
he  had  carefully  expounded  it,  the  foundation  of  his 
philosophy.  The  French,  for  whom  his  system  was 
worked  out  by  Condillac,  proceeded  much  farther  in  the 
matter  on  the  same  basis,  inasmuch  as  they  put  forward 
and  urged  the  proposition,  penser,  c'est  sentir.  Taken 
absolutely,  this  proposition  is  false,  but  there  lies  this 
truth  in  it,  that  all  thought  in  part  presupposes  feeling 
as  ingredient  of  the  perception  which  furnishes  for  it  its 
material;  in  part  it  is  no  more  than  feeling  conditioned 
by  corporeal  organs.  As  the  latter,  namely,  is  condi¬ 
tioned  by  the  nerves  of  sense,  so  is  the  former  by  the 
brain,  and  both  consist  in  nervous  activity.  Yet  even 
the  French  school  does  not  hold  closely  by  this  proposi¬ 
tion,  but  only  with  a  metaphysical  —  in  this  case  a  ma¬ 
terialistic —  purpose,  just  as  their  Platonic,  Cartesian, 
Leibnitzian  opponents  had  only  held  the  false  proposi¬ 
tion  that  the  only  accurate  knowledge  of  things  consists 
in  pure  thought,  also  with  a  metaphysical  object,  in  order 
thereby  to  prove  the  immateriality  of  the  soul.  Kant 
alone  leads  us  away  from  both  these  false  paths,  and 
from  a  quarrel  in  which  neither  party,  properly  speak¬ 
ing,  proceeds  honestly  to  the  truth.  The  two  sides  both 
profess  dianoialogy,  but  their  attention  is  really  turned 
to  metaphysic,  and  hence  they  falsify  dianoialogy.  Kant 
says :  (<  Certainly  there  is  a  pure  knowledge  from  reason, 
that  is,  cognitions  a  priori ,  which  precede  all  experience, 
and  consequently  also  a  Thought,  which  does  not  owe 
its  material  to  any  knowledge  by  means  of  the  senses.” 
But  even  this  knowledge  a  priori,  although  not  drawn 
from  experience,  has  only  worth  and  validity  for  the 
sake  of  experience;  for  it  is  nothing  else  but  the  aware¬ 
ness  of  our  own  knowledge  apparatus  and  its  modus 
operandi  (brain  function),  or,  as  Kant  expresses  it,  the 
form  of  the  knowing  consciousness  itself,  which  receives 
its  material  primarily  through  the  empirical  knowledge, 
with  which  it  is  connected  by  means  of  the  sense  feel¬ 
ing,  and  without  which  it  is  empty  and  useless;  whence 
his  philosophy  is  termed  the  <(  Critique  of  pure  Reason.  ” 
Therewith  all  the  above  metaphysical  psychology  falls  to 
the  ground,  and  with  it  falls  all  Plato’s  pure  activity  of 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


US 


the  soul.  For  we  see  that  knowledge  without  the  per¬ 
ception  which  is  brought  about  through  the  body  has  no 
material,  and  that  therefore  the  knowing  subject,  as  such, 
is  nothing  but  a  mere  empty  form  without  the  presuppo¬ 
sition  of  the  body,  even  setting  aside  the  fact  that  all 
thought  is  a  mere  physiological  function  of  the  brain  as 
digestion  is  of  the  stomach. 

If  then,  accordingly,  Plato’s  doctrine  of  isolating  knowl¬ 
edge  and  keeping  it  pure  from  all  communication  with 
the  body,  the  senses,  and  perception,  is  shown  to  be  pur¬ 
poseless,  mistaken,  and  even  impossible,  we  may,  not¬ 
withstanding,  regard  my  doctrine,  that  only  the  intuitive 
knowledge  kept  pure  from  all  community  with  the  will 
attains  the  highest  objectivity,  and  therefore  perfection, 
as  the  true  analogue  of  the  same.  Respecting  this  I  re¬ 
fer  the  reader  to  the  third  book  of  my  chief  work. 


Section  5. 

ARISTOTLE. 

The  main  characteristic  of  Aristotle  may  be  said  to 
have  been  pre-eminent  acuteness,  combined  with  circum¬ 
spection,  power  of  observation,  many-sidedness,  and  want 
of  depth.  His  conception  of  the  world  is  tame,  although 
acutely  worked  out.  Depth  of  thought  finds  its  material 
in  ourselves;  acuteness  has  to  receive  it  from  without  if 
it  is  to  have  any  data.  But  at  that  time  the  empirical 
data  were,  on  the  one  hand  few,  and  on  the  other 
false.  For  this  reason  the  study  of  Aristotle  is  nowa¬ 
days  not  very  profitable,  while  that  of  Plato  remains 
so  in  the  highest  degree.  The  want  of  depth  complained 
of  in  Aristotle  is  naturally  most  apparent  in  his 
<(  Metaphysic, ®  where  mere  acuteness  will  not,  as  else¬ 
where,  suffice ;  hence,  in  the  latter,  he  is  least  satisfactory. 
His  (<  Metaphysic  n  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  conversation 
as  to  the  philosophies  of  his  predecessors,  which  he  criti¬ 
cises  and  refutes  from  his  standpoint,  mostly  from  iso¬ 
lated  sayings,  without  penetrating  their  meaning,  and 
somewhat  like  one  who  breaks  windows  from  the  outside. 

10 


146 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


He  propounds  few  or  no  dogmas  of  his  own,  or  at  least 
not  in  a  connected  manner.  That  we  are  indebted  to 
his  polemic  for  a  great  part  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
older  philosophies,  is  an  accidental  service.  He  is  most 
hostile  to  Plato  precisely  where  Plato  is  entirely  right. 
The  (<  ideas  *  of  the  latter  return  like  something  which 
he  cannot  digest  again  and  again  into  his  mouth;  he  is 
resolved  not  to  admit  their  validity.  Acuteness  suffices 
in  the  empirical  sciences;  hence  Aristotle  has  a  pre¬ 
eminently  empirical  bent.  But  inasmuch  as,  since  his 
time,  experience  has  made  such  progress  as  to  stand  to 
its  then  state  in  the  relation  of  adult  age  to  childhood, 
the  empirical  sciences  cannot,  to-day,  be  directly  very 
much  advanced  by  the  method  and  the  specially  scien¬ 
tific  attitude  which  characterized  him  and  was  started 
by  him,  though  indirectly  they  may  be.  In  zoology, 
however,  he  is  still,  at  least  in  some  respects,  of 
direct  use.  His  empirical  bent  in  general  gives  him 
the  disposition  to  continually  dissipate  himself.  He 
is  apt,  accordingly,  to  spring  so  easily  aside  from  the 
line  of  thought  which  he  had  begun,  as  to  be  almost  in¬ 
capable  of  following  out  any  line  of  thought  for  long 
and  to  the  end,  in  the  capacity  for  which  consists  pre¬ 
cisely  the  faculty  of  deep  thought.  On  the  contrary, 
he  is  always  starting  problems,  but  only  touching  them, 
and  proceeding  at  once,  without  solving  them  or  even 
thoroughly  discussing  them,  to  something  else.  Hence 
his  reader  often  thinks,  (( Now  it’s  coming,®  but  it  does 
not  come;  and  hence  it  often  appears,  when  he  has  stirred 
a  problem  and  followed  it  out  a  short  way,  that  the  truth 
has  been  hanging  upon  his  lips,  when  suddenly  he  is  off 
to  something  else  and  leaves  us  in  doubt.  For  he  can¬ 
not  keep  to  anything,  but  springs  from  that  which  he  in¬ 
tended  to  something  different  which  occurs  to  him  at  the 
moment,  as  a  child  lets  a  toy  fall  in  order  to  seize  an¬ 
other  it  has  just  seen.  This  is  the  weak  side  of  his  in¬ 
tellect;  it  is  the  vivacity  of  superficiality.  It  is  the 
explanation  of  why,  although  Aristotle  was  a  highly  sys¬ 
tematic  head,  since  from  him  proceeded  the  separation 
and  classification  of  the  sciences,  nevertheless  his  exposi¬ 
tion  is  throughout  deficient  in  systematic  arrangement, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


1 47 

and  we  miss  therein  a  methodical  progress,  namely,  the 
separation  of  the  dissimilar  and  collocation  of  the  simi¬ 
lar.  He  deals  with  things  as  they  occur  to  him  without 
having  previously  thought  them  out  and  sketched  a  clear 
plan  of  them ;  he  thinks  with  a  pen  in  his  hand,  a  method 
which,  though  it  is  a  great  facility  for  the  writer,  is  a 
great  grievance  for  the  reader.  Hence  the  planlessness 
and  insufficiency  of  his  exposition;  hence  the  reason  why 
he  comes  back  a  hundred  times  to  the  same  thing,  sim¬ 
ply  because  something  foreign  to  it  had  come  in  between ; 
hence  the  reason  why  he  cannot  keep  to  a  subject,  but 
goes  from  the  hundredth  to  the  thousandth;  hence  it  is 
that  he  leads,  as  above  described,  the  reader,  anxious  for 
the  solution  of  the  problem  mooted,  about  by  the  nose; 
hence  it  is  that,  after  having  devoted  several  pages  to  a 
subject,  he  begins  his  investigation  suddenly  from  the 
beginning  with  Adficopev  ouv  dXXrjv  dp/yv  t?79  <7/c^ew?,  and 
this  six  times  in  one  work;  hence  the  motto,  quid  feret 
hie  tanto  dignum  promissor  hiatu ,  applies  to  so  many  of 
the  exordiums  of  his  books  and  chapters;  hence,  in  a 
word,  he  is  so  often  confused  and  unsatisfactory.  In  ex¬ 
ceptional  cases  he  has  certainly  done  things  differently, 
as,  for  instance,  the  three  books  of  <(  Rhetoric, ®  which 
are  throughout  a  model  of  scientific  method,  and  indeed 
exhibit  an  architectonic  symmetry  which  may  well  have 
been  the  original  of  the  Kantian. 

The  radical  antithesis  of  Aristotle,  alike  in  his  mode 
of  thought  as  also  in  his  exposition,  is  Plato.  The  latter 
holds  fast  to  his  leading  thought  as  if  with  an  iron  hand, 
follows  out  its  thread,  be  it  never  so  thin,  in  all  its  ram¬ 
ifications,  through  the  labyrinths  of  the  longest  dialogues, 
and  finds  it  again  after  all  episodes.  One  sees  from  this 
that  he  had  fully  and  ripely  thought  out  his  subject,  and 
had  planned  an  artistic  arrangement  for  its  exposition,  be¬ 
fore  he  started  to  write.  Hence,  every  dialogue  is  a 
planned  work  of  art,  all  of  whose  parts  have  a  well 
thought-out  connection,  though  it  is  often  purposely  hid¬ 
den  for  a  time,  and  whose  frequent  episodes  often  lead 
back,  unexpectedly  and  of  themselves,  to  the  leading 
idea,  after  it  has  been  made  clear  by  them.  Plato  always 
knew,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  what  he  wanted  and 


148 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


intended;  although  for  the  most  part  he  does  not  carry- 
through  the  problems  to  a  decisive  issue,  but  is  satisfied 
with  their  thorough -going  discussion.  We  need  not  much 
wonder,  therefore,  if  some  accounts,  especially  in  HHian 
(((Var.  Hist.,”  iii. ,  19,  iv.  9,  etc.),  state  that  between  Plato 
and  Aristotle  considerable  personal  want  of  harmony  was 
displayed;  also  that  Plato  now  and  then  spoke  somewhat 
disparagingly  of  Aristotle,  whose  unsteadiness,  flashiness, 
and  levity,  though  it  was  connected  with  his  polymathy, 
was  quite  antipathetic  to  Plato.  Schiller’s  poem,  (<  Breadth 
and  Depth,”  may  be  applied  to  the  antithesis  between 
Aristotle  and  Plato. 

In  spite  of  this  empirical  mental  attitude,  Aristotle  was, 
nevertheless,  no  logical  and  methodical  empiricist ;  hence 
he  had  to  be  overthrown  and  driven  out  by  the  true 
father  of  empiricism,  Bacon  of  Verulam.  Anyone  who 
wants  to  properly  understand  in  what  sense  and  why  the 
latter  was  the  opponent  and  conqueror  of  Aristotle  and 
his  method,  has  only  to  read  the  books  of  Aristotle,  <(  De 
degeneratione  et  corruptione.  ”  Here  he  will  find  a  true 
a  priori  treatment  of  nature,  one  which  seeks  to  under¬ 
stand  and  explain  its  processes  from  mere  conceptions; 
a  particularly  bad  instance  is  furnished  in  1.  ii.,  c.  4, 
where  a  chemistry  is  constructed  a  priori.  Bacon,  on 
the  other  hand,  appeared  with  the  advice  not  to  make 
the  abstract,  but  the  perceptual  experience,  the  source 
of  the  knowledge  of  nature.  The  brilliant  result  of  this 
is  the  present  high  state  of  the  natural  sciences,  from 
which  we  look  down,  with  a  piteous  smile,  on  these 
Aristotelian  vexations  of  spirit.  In  this  respect  it  is  very 
remarkable  that  the  above  mentioned  books  of  Aristotle 
disclose,  quite  plainly  even,  the  origin  of  scholasticism; 
indeed  the  quibbling,  word- juggling  method  of  the  latter 
is  already  to  be  met  with  there.  For  the  same  purpose 
the  books  (<  De  coelo  ”  are  also  very  useful,  and  therefore 
worthy  of  being  read.  Even  the  first  chapters  are  a  good 
sample  of  the  method  of  seeking  to  determine  and  to 
know  the  essence  of  nature  from  mere  conceptions,  and 
the  failure  is  here  obvious.  It  is  there  proved  to  us  in 
chap,  viii.,  from  mere  conception  and  locis  communibus , 
that  there  are  not  several  worlds,  and  in  chap.  xii.  it  is 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


149 


similarly  speculated  as  to  the  course  of  the  stars.  It  is 
a  logical  reasoning  from  false  conceptions,  a  quite  special 
nature-dialectic,  which  undertakes,  from  certain  universal 
axioms,  which  are  supposed  to  express  what  is  reasona¬ 
ble  and  proper,  to  decide  a  priori  what  nature  is  and 
how  it  must  act.  In  seeing  such  a  great,  indeed  stupen¬ 
dous,  intellect  such  as,  after  all  said  and  done,  Aristotle 
remains,  entangled  so  thickly  in  errors  of  this  sort, 
which  maintained  their  validity  till  a  few  hundred  years 
ago,  it  is  pre-eminently  plain  to  us  how  very  much  hu¬ 
manity  owes  to  Kopernicus,  Kepler,  Galilei,  Bacon,  Rob¬ 
ert  Hook,  and  Newton.  In  chaps,  vii.  and  viii.  of  the 
second  book,  Aristotle  expounds  to  us  his  whole  absurd 
arrangement  of  the  heavens:  The  stars  cleave  fast  to 
the  revolving  hollow  globe;  sun  and  planets  to  similar 
nearer  ones;  the  friction  of  revolving  produces  light  and 
heat;  the  earth  stands,  it  is  expressly  said,  still.  All 
this  might  pass  if  there  had  not  already  been  something 
better;  but  when  he  himself,  in  chap,  xiii.,  presents  to 
us  the  entirely  correct  views  of  the  Pythagoreans  on  the 
form,  place,  and  motion  of  the  earth  in  order  to  reject 
them,  it  can  hardly  fail  to  arouse  our  indignation.  This 
will  rise  when  we  see  from  his  frequent  polemic  against 
Empedokles,  Herakleitos,  and  Demokritos,  how  all  these 
had  much  more  correct  insight  into  nature,  and  had  even 
attended  to  experience  better,  than  the  barren  talker  that 
we  have  before  us.  Empedokles  had,  indeed,  already 
taught  a  tangential  force  arising  from  revolution  and  act¬ 
ing  in  opposition  to  gravity  (ii.  1  and  13,  also  the  (<  Scholia,® 
p.  491).  Far  removed  from  being  able  to  estimate  this  at 
its  true  value,  Aristotle  does  not  even  admit  the  correct 
views  of  these  ancients  on  the  true  significance  of  above 
and  below,  but  here  also  takes  his  stand  on  the 
vulgar  opinion  which  follows  the  superficial  appearance 
(iv.,  2).  But  we  have  further  to  bear  in  mind  that  these 
his  views  found  recognition  and  circulation,  superseding 
all  that  was  earlier  and  better,  and  so  became,  later  on 
the  foundation  of  Hipparchus,  and  afterward  of  the 
Ptolemaic  cosmology,  with  which  mankind  had  to  content 
itself  till  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  to  the 
great  advantage,  doubtless,  of  the  Jewish-Christian  reli- 


150 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


gious  dogmas,  which  are  at  bottom  incompatible  with  the 
Kopernican  cosmology.  ( For  how  should  there  be  a  God 
in  heaven  when  there  is  no  heaven  ?)  Theism  when 
seriously  meant,  necessarily  presupposes  the  division  of 
the  world  into  heaven  and  earth;  on  the  latter  men  run 
about,  in  the  former  sits  the  God  who  rules  them.  But 
if  astronomy  takes  the  heaven  away,  it  has  taken  the  God 
with  it  also;  it  has,  that  is  to  say,  so  extended  the  world 
that  there  is  no  room  left  for  God.  But  a  personal  being, 
such  as  every  God  must  necessarily  be,  who  has  no  place, 
but  is  everywhere  and  nowhere,  can  merely  be  spoken  of, 
but  not  imagined,  and  therefore  not  believed  in.  To  the 
extent,  accordingly,  to  which  physical  astronomy  is 
popularized,  theism  must  wane,  however  much  it  may 
have  been  impressed  upon  men  by  an  unceasing  and 
pompous  preaching.  The  Catholic  Church  rightly  recog¬ 
nized  this  at  once,  and  accordingly  persecuted  the  Ko¬ 
pernican  system ;  as  regards  which  it  is  childish  to  wonder 
and  shriek  over  the  crushing  of  Galilei,  for  omnis  natura 
vult  esse  conservatrix  sui.  Who  knows  whether  a  secret 
knowledge,  or  at  least  presentiment,  of  this  congeniality 
of  Aristotle  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  and  of  the 
danger  averted  by  him,  did  not  contribute  to  the  over¬ 
weening  adoration  of  him  in  the  Middle  Ages  ?  Who 
knows  whether  many  a  one,  stimulated  by  his  accounts 
of  the  olden  astronomical  systems,  had  not  secretly 
penetrated  these  truths  long  before  Kopernicus,  who, 
after  many  years  of  hesitation,  and  with  the  intention 
of  separating  himself  from  the  world  finally  ventured  to 
proclaim  them  ? 


Section  6. 

STOICS. 

A  very  beautiful  and  pregnant  conception  with  the 
Stoics,  is  that  of  the  Myo?  (nzep^aTinos,  although  more  com¬ 
plete  accounts  respecting  it  than  those  which  have  come 
down  to  us  might  be  desired  ( w  Diog.  Laert.,®  vii.,  136; 
<(  Plut.  de  Plac.  Phil.,®  i.,  7;  (<  Stob.  Eel.,®  i.,  p.  372). 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


151 

Thus  much  is  clear,  however,  that  what  was  understood 
thereby  was  that  which  in  the  successive  individuals  of 
a  kind  asserted  and  preserved  its  identical  form,  inas¬ 
much  as  it  passes  over  from  the  one  to  the  other;  as, 
for  instance,  the  conception  of  the  species  embodied  in 
the  seed.  The  Logos  spermaticus  is  accordingly  the  in¬ 
destructible  element  in  the  individual,  that,  namely, 
through  which  it  is  one  of  a  species  representing  and 
maintaining  it.  It  is  that  by  virtue  of  which  the  death 
which  annihilates  the  individual  does  not  touch  the  kind, 
which  makes  the  individual  continuously  present  in  spite 
of  death.  Hence  we  might  translate  XoXos  o^ppariKO^  as 
the  magical  formula  which  at  all  times  calls  this  form  into 
the  phenomenon.  Nearly  related  to  it  is  the  conception 
of  the  forma  substantialis  of  the  Schoolmen,  through 
which  the  inner  principle  of  the  complex  of  all  the 
qualities  of  every  natural  being  is  thought;  its  antithesis 
is  the  materia  prima ,  the  pure  matter,  destitute  of  all 
form  and  quality.  The  soul  of  man  is  just  his  forma 
substantialis.  What  distinguishes  both  conceptions  is,  that 
the  Xoyo?  ffnsp/iaTuco?  accrues  solely  to  living  and  procreat¬ 
ing  beings,  but  the  forma  substantialis  to  inorganic  beings 
also.  The  one  refers,  moreover,  directly  to  the  individ¬ 
ual,  the  other  directly  to  the  kind;  both,  on  the  other 
hand,  are  obviously  related  to  the  Platonic  idea.  Expla¬ 
nations  of  the  forma  substantialis  are  to  be  seen  in  (<  Scotus 
Erigena  de  Divis.  Nat.  f  lib.  iii. ,  p.  139  of  the  Oxford 
edition;  in  <(  Giordino  Bruno,  della  Cosa,®  dial.  3,  p.  252 
seq. ,  and  developed  at  length  in  the  (<  Disputationibus 
Metaphsicis w  of  Suarez  ( disp.  15,  sect.  1),  that  genuine 
compendium  of  the  whole  scholastic  wisdom,  where  one 
should  seek  its  acquaintance  rather  than  in  the  bald 
placidity  of  soulless  German  professors  of  philosophy,  the 
quintessence  of  all  shallowness  and  tediousness. 

One  chief  source  of  our  knowledge  of  the  Stoic  ethics  is 
the  very  complete  presentation  of  them  preserved  for  us 
by  Stobaeus  ((<  Eel.  Eth.,”  1.  2,  c.  vii.),  in  which  one  may 
flatter  oneself  that  one  possesses,  for  the  most  part,  verbal 
extracts  from  Zeno  and  Chrysippus.  If  this  be  correct,  it 
is  not  calculated  to  give  us  a  high  opinion  of  the  spirit  of 
these  philosophers,  seeing  that  it  is  a  pedantic,  pedagogic, 


I$2 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


eminently  bald,  incredibly  empty,  flat  and  spiritless  expo¬ 
sition  of  the  Stoic  morality,  without  force  and  life,  and 
without  valuable,  striking,  or  noble  thoughts.  Everything 
in  it  is  deduced  from  mere  conceptions,  and  not  drawn 
from  reality  and  experience.  Mankind  is  accordingly 
divided  into  <ttc oudaloi  and  <j>au^oc ,  virtuous  and  vicious ;  to 
the  former  is  attributed  everything  good,  to  the  latter 
everything  bad,  all  things  appearing  in  consequence  black 
and  white,  like  a  Prussian  sentry-box.  Assuredly  these 
dull  school-exercises  will  not  bear  comparison  with  the 
energetic,  powerful,  and  well-thought-out  paragraphs  of 
Seneca. 

The  dissertations  of  Arrian  on  the  philosophy  of  Epic¬ 
tetus,  composed  some  four  hundred  years  after  the  origin 
of  the  Stoa,  give  us  no  reliable  information  as  to  the 
true  spirit  and  the  special  principles  of  the  Stoic  ethics, 
for  the  book  is  unsatisfactory  both  as  to  form  and  con¬ 
tent.  Firstly,  as  regards  the  form,  one  misses  in  it  every 
trace  of  method,  of  systematic  treatment,  and  even  of 
orderly  progression.  In  chapters  tacked  on  to  one  another 
without  order  and  connection,  it  is  untiringly  repeated 
that  one  should  pay  no  attention  to  anything  that  is  not 
the  expression  of  our  own  will,  and  that  therefore  every¬ 
thing  that  otherwise  moves  men  should  be  regarded 
completely  without  interest;  this  is  the  Stoic  drapagla. 
That,  namely,  which  is  not  ijinv  would  also  not  be  7^09 
■fjpd?.  This  colossal  paradox,  however,  is  not  deduced 
from  any  principles  at  all,  but  the  most  extraordinary 
opinion  of  the  world  is  required  of  us  without  any  ground 
being  given  for  it.  Instead  of  this  we  find  endless  dec¬ 
lamations  in  ceaselessly  recurring  phrases  and  turns  of 
expression.  For  the  consequences  of  these  wonderful 
maxims  are  expounded  in  the  most  complete  and  vivid 
manner,  and  we  accordingly  have  described  how  the  Stoics 
make  something  from  nothing  at  all.  Meanwhile,  every¬ 
one  who  thinks  differently  is  unceasingly  abused  as  a  slave 
and  a  fool.  But  one  hopes  in  vain  for  the  indication  of  any 
clear  and  adequate  ground  for  the  assumption  of  this 
remarkable  mode  of  thought,  although  such  would,  have 
more  effect  than  all  the  abuse  and  declamations  of  the 
whole  thick  book.  As  it  is,  it  is  a  true  Capuchin’s  sermon, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


153 


with  its  hyperbolic  descriptions  of  the  Stoic  apathy,  its 
incessantly  repeated  panegyrics  of  the  holy  fathers  Klean- 
thes,  Chrysippos,  Zeno,  Krates,  Diogenese,  Sokrates,  and 
its  abuse  of  all  who  differ  from  them.  To  such  a  book  is 
certainly  suited  the  planless  and  desultory  nature  of  the 
whole  contents.  What  the  heading  of  a  chapter  indicates 
is  only  the  subject  of  its  beginning;  at  the  first  oppor¬ 
tunity  a  jump  is  made,  and,  as  far  as  the  nexus  idearum 
is  concerned,  we  pass  from  the  hundredth  to  the  thou¬ 
sandth.  So  much  as  to  form. 

As  regards  the  content,  it  is  the  same ;  and  even  if  we 
overlook  the  fact  that  the  foundation  is  entirely  wanting, 
it  is  at  all  events  not  genuine  and  thoroughly  Stoical, 
but  has  a  strong  foreign  admixture,  which  smacks  of  a 
Christian- Jewish  source.  The  most  undeniable  proof  of 
this  is  the  theism  which  is  to  be  found  on  every  side  and 
is  also  the  support  of  the  ethics;  the  Cynics  and  the  Stoics 
act  here  on  behalf  of  God,  whose  will  is  their  guiding- 
star;  they  are  devoted  to  him,  hope  in  him,  etc.  The 
genuine,  original  Stoa  is  quite  foreign  to  all  this;  God 
and  the  world  are  there  one,  and  nothing  is  known  of  a 
God  who  thinks,  wills,  commands,  and  provides  for  men. 
Not  alone  in  Arrian,  however,  but  in  most  of  the  heathen 
philosophic  writers  of  the  first  Christian  century,  we  see 
the  Jewish  theism,  destined  ere  long  to  become  a  popular 
creed  in  Christianity,  already  peering  through,  just  as 
to-day  there  peers  through  the  writings  of  scholars  the 
pantheism  native  to  India,  which  is  also  destined  here¬ 
after  to  pass  over  into  the  popular  belief.  Ex  oriente  lux. 

For  the  reasons  above  given,  the  ethic  here  expounded 
is  not  purely  Stoical.  Many  of  its  maxims  are,  indeed, 
mutually  incompatible,  hence  no  ground-principles  com¬ 
mon  to  it  can  be  mentioned.  In  the  same  way  Cynicism 
is  entirely  falsified  by  the  doctrine  that  the  Cynic  should 
be  such  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  others,  namely,  in  order 
to  act  upon  them  by  his  example  as  commissioned  by 
God,  and  in  order  by  mixing  in  their  affairs  to  guide 
them.  Hence  it  is  said,  (<  In  a  city  where  there  were 
only  wise  men,  no  Cynic  would  be  necessary;”  and,  in 
the  same  way,  that  he  should  be  healthy,  strong,  and 
cleanly,  in  order  not  to  repel  people.  How  far  is  this 


i54 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


from  the  self-satisfaction  of  the  old  genuine  Cynics  ?  It 
is  true  Diogenes  and  Krates  .were  the  domestic  friends 
and  advisers  of  many  families;  but  that  was  secondary 
and  accidental,  and  in  no  wise  the  purpose  of  Cynicism. 

Arrian  has  therefore  entirely  lost  sight  of  the  properly 
fundamental  idea  of  Cynicism  as  of  the  Stoic  ethics;  in¬ 
deed  he  does  not  even  seem  to  have  felt  the  need  of 
them.  He  preaches  self-renunciation  because  it  pleases 
him,  and  perhaps  it  only  pleases  him  becuse  it  is  diffi¬ 
cult  and  opposed  to  human  nature,  while  in  the  mean¬ 
time  the  preaching  is  easy.  He  did  not  seek  for  the 
grounds  of  self-renunciation;  hence  one  thinks,  now  one 
is  listening  to  a  Christian  ascetic,  now  again  to  a  Stoic. 
For  the  maxims  of  both  often  concur,  but  the  principles 
on  which  they  rest  are  quite  different.  I  refer  the  reader 
in  this  matter  to  my  chief  work  (vol.  i.,  §  16,  and  vol. 
ii.,  chap,  xvi.),  where  for  the  first  time  the  true  spirit 
of  Cynicism  as  of  the  Stoa  is  systematically  expounded. 

The  inconsistency  of  Arrian  presents  itself,  indeed,  in 
a  ridiculous  manner,  in  that  he,  with  his  countless  times 
repeated  description  of  the  Stoic,  always  says:  <(He 
blames  no  one,  complains  neither  of  Gods  nor  of  men, 
scolds  no  one,w  while  at  the  same  time  his  whole  book 
is  throughout  conceived  in  a  scolding  tone,  which  often 
descends  to  abuse. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  there  are  here  and  there  gen¬ 
uine  Stoic  thoughts  to  be  met  with  in  the  book,  which 
Arrian  or  Epictetus  had  derived  from  the  ancient  Stoics ; 
and  similarly  Cynicism  is  in  some  of  its  features  tellingly 
and  vividly  depicted.  In  places  there  is  also  much  sound 
common  sense,  as  well  as  descriptions,  drawn  from  life, 
of  man  and  his  doings.  The  style  is  easy  and  flowing, 
but  very  bald. 

That  Epictetus’  <(  Encheiridion }>  is  also  composed  by 
Arrian,  as  A.  Wolfe  assured  us  in  his  lectures,  I  do  not 
believe.  It  has  much  more  spirit  in  fewer  words  than 
the  dissertations,  is  instinct  throughout  with  sound  sense, 
has  no  empty  declamations,  no  ostentation,  is  concise  to 
the  point,  and  moreover  written  in  the  tone  of  a  well- 
meaning  friend  giving  his  advice;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  dissertations  speak  mostly  in  a  scolding  and 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


155 


execrating  tone.  The  content  of  both  books  is,  on  the 
whole,  the  same ;  only  that  the  <(  Encheiridion ”  has  very 
little  of  the  theism  of  the  dissertations.  Perhaps  the 
<(  Encheiridion ”  was  Epictetus’  own  compendium,  which 
he  dictated  to  his  hearers,  but  the  dissertations  the  manu¬ 
script  copied  from  the  free  discourse  by  his  commentator 
Arrian. 


Section  7. 

NEOPLATONISTS. 

The  reading  of  the  Neoplatonists  requires  much 
patience,  since  they  fail  entirely  as  regards  form  and 
style.  Far  better  than  the  others  in  this  respect  is  Por¬ 
phyry.  He  is  the  only  one  who  writes  clearly  and  con¬ 
nectedly,  so  that  one  reads  him  without  repulsion. 

The  worst,  on  the  contrary,  is  Iamblichos,  in  his  book 
(<  De  Mysteriis  Egyptiorum,))  which  is  full  of  crass  super¬ 
stition  and  crude  demonology,  besides  being  conceited. 
He  has,  it  is  true,  another  as  it  were  esoteric  opinion  on 
magic  and  theurgy,  but  his  statements  concerning  this 
are  only  flat  and  insignificant.  On  the  whole,  he  is  a 
bad  and  turgid  writer,  limited,  distorted,  grossly  super¬ 
stitious,  confused,  and  unclear.  One  sees  plainly  that  what 
he  teaches  has  by  no  means  arisen  from  his  own  reflec¬ 
tion,  but  that  they  are  foreign,  often  only  half  under¬ 
stood,  but  all  the  more  strenuously  asserted  dogmas; 
hence,  also,  he  is  full  of  contradictions.  But  the  book  in 
question  is  now  denied  to  be  by  Iamblichos,  and  I  am 
inclined  to  agree  with  this  opinion  when  I  read  the  long 
extracts  from  his  lost  works  preserved  by  Stobaeus,  and 
which  are  incomparably  better  than  the  book  <(  De  Mys¬ 
teriis,”  containing  as  they  do  many  good  thoughts  of  the 
Neoplatonic  school. 

Proklos,  again,  is  a  dry,  bald,  insipid  talker;  his  com¬ 
mentary  to  Plato’s  <( Alkibiades,  ”  one  of  the  worst  of  the 
Platonic  dialogues,  which,  moreover,  may  be  ungenuine, 
is  the  baldest,  most  diffuse  piece  of  insipidity  in  the 
world.  Over  every,  even  the  most  insignificant,  word  of 


156 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


Plato’s  there  is  endless  talk,  and  deep  meaning  is  sought 
therein.  What  by  Plato  was  said  mythically  and  alle¬ 
gorically  is  taken  in  its  literal  sense  and  in  a  spirit  of 
rigid  dogmatism,  everything  being  twisted  into  the  super¬ 
stitious  and  the  theosophical.  It  is,  nevertheless,  not  to 
be  denied,  that  in  the  first  half  of  this  commentary  some 
very  good  ideas  are  to  be  met  with,  though  they  proba¬ 
bly  more  strictly  belong  to  the  school  than  to  Proklos 
himself.  It  is  a  highly  important  proposition  that  closes 
the  fasciculum  priinum  partis  primes:  al  ru>v  <pv%<i>v  Iqioeis  r a 
plyiora  auvTeXouoi  T:pb<s  too 9  /Jtou?,  /cat  00  nXaTTop.ivoi$  eZwltev 
iuiKa.lj.ev,  dX£  e<p'  iaurwv  xlo  [Hallo  pev  raj  aiploeis,  KaO'a<;  didZwpev 
( animorum  appetitus  \ante  hanc  vitam  concepti~\  plurimam 
vim  habent  in  vitas  eligendas ,  nec  extrinsecus  fictis  similes 
snmus,  sed  nostra  spoilt e  facimus  electiones ,  secundum  quas 
deinde  vitas  transigimus).  This  certainly  has  its  root 
in  Plato,  and  approaches  Plato’s  doctrine  of  intelligible 
character,  standing  high  above  the  dull  and  narrow 
theories  of  the  freedom  of  the  individual  will,  that 
can  always  do  thus  and  otherwise,  with  which  our 
professors  of  philosophy  —  the  catechism  forever  before 
their  eyes  —  content  themselves  up  to  the  present  day. 
Augustine  and  Luther,  for  their  part,  had  called  in  aid 
election  by  grace.  That  was  good  enough  for  those  God- 
given  times,  when  people  were  ready,  if  it  pleased  God, 
to  go  to  the  devil  in  God’s  name ;  but  in  our  time  refuge 
can  only  be  taken  in  aseity  of  the  will,  and  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that,  as  Proklos  has  it,  oh  TzlarTopivoig  e^wd-ev 

iotKo/jev. 

Plotinos,  finally,  the  most  important  of  all,  is  very 
unequal,  and  the  various  (<  Enneads  *  are  of  extremely  di¬ 
verse  value  and  content;  the  fourth  is  excellent.  Expo¬ 
sition  and  style  are,  however,  for  the  most  part,  very 
bad  with  him;  his  thoughts  are  not  ordered  nor  previ¬ 
ously  considered,  but  he  writes  them  down  just  as  they 
come.  Porphyry  in  his  biography  tells  us  of  the  loose, 
careless  way  in  which  he  set  to  work.  Hence  his  bald 
tedious  diffuseness  and  confusion  often  overcomes  all  pa¬ 
tience,  so  that  one  wonders  how  such  stuff  could  have 
come  down  to  the  modern  world.  He  usually  has  the 
style  of  a  pulpit  preacher,  and  as  the  latter  sets  forth 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


157 


the  gospel,  so  he  sets  forth  the  Platonic  doctrines.  At 
the  same  time,  what  Plato  has  said  mythically  or  half 
metaphorically,  he  drags  down  to  intentional  prosaic  seri¬ 
ousness,  and  chews  at  the  same  thought  for  hours  with¬ 
out  adding  anything  to  it  from  his  own  resources.  In 
this  he  proceeds  authoritatively,  and  not  demonstratively, 
speaking  throughout  ex  tripode;  explains  the  matter  as  he 
thinks  it  to  be,  without  attempting  to  lay  any  founda¬ 
tion  for  it.  And  yet  there  are  great,  important,  and 
pregnant  truths  to  be  found  in  his  works,  and  these  he 
certainly  understood  himself,  for  he  is  by  no  means  with¬ 
out  insight;  for  which  reason  he  undoubtedly  deserves  to 
be  read,  and  richly  rewards  the  patience  necessary  thereto. 

The  explanation  of  these  characteristics  of  Plotinos  I 
find  in  the  fact  that  he  and  the  Neoplatonists  generally 
are  not  properly  philosophers,  are  not  original  thinkers, 
but  that  what  they  expound  is  an  alien,  traditional  doc¬ 
trine,  notwithstanding  that  it  has  been  well  digested  and 
assimilated  by  them.  It  is,  namely,  Indo-Egyptian  wis¬ 
dom,  which  they  sought  to  embody  in  the  Greek  philos¬ 
ophy,  and  as  a  suitable  connective  tissue  —  a  conduit  or 
menstruum  for  this  —  they  use  the  Platonic  philosophy, 
especially  those  parts  of  it  which  branch  off  into  the 
mystical.  To  the  Indian  origin,  through  Egypt,  of  the 
Neoplatonic  dogmas,  the  All-One  doctrine  of  Plotinos  tes¬ 
tifies  directly  and  unmistakably,  as  we  find  it  admirably 
presented  in  the  fourth  <(  Ennead. w  Even  the  first  chap¬ 
ter  of  the  first  book  of  the  latter,  nepi  oo<rca$  <pu/r/?,  gives 
in  great  brevity  the  ground  doctrines  of  his  whole  phi¬ 
losophy  of  the  (po'/rj ,  which  is  originally  one,  and  is  only 
sundered  into  many  by  means  of  the  corporeal  world. 
Particularly  interesting  is  the  eighth  book  of  this  <(  En¬ 
nead, w  which  shows  how  the  (po'/p  has  reached  this  state 
of  multiplicity  by  a  sinful  striving.  It  carries,  accord¬ 
ingly,  a  double  guilt;  firstly,  that  of  its  descent  into  this 
world,  and  secondly,  that  of  its  sinful  deeds  in  the  same ; 
the  former  it  expiates  by  its  temporal  existence  generally, 
the  latter,  which  is  the  less  important,  by  transmigration 
(c.  5).  This  is  obviously  the  same  thought  as  the  Chris¬ 
tian  original  sin  and  particular  sin.  But  above  all  worthy 
of  being  read  is  the  ninth  book,  where,  in  cnap.  iii.,  el 


I5s 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


naval  al  (po'/ai  pia,  from  the  unity  of  the  above  world 
soul,  among  other  things,  the  wonders  of  animal  mag¬ 
netism  are  explained,  especially  the  phenomenon  even 
now  observed,  that  the  somnambule  hears  a  softly  spoken 
word  at  the  greatest  distance,  though  this,  of  course, 
requires  a  chain  of  persons  standing  en  rapport  with  her. 
With  Plotinos,  moreover,  there  appears,  probably  for  the 
first  time  in  Western  philosophy,  the  Idealism  already 
long  current  in  the  East,  inasmuch  as  it  is  taught 
(“Enn,,®  iii. ,  1.  7,  c.  10)  that  the  soul  has  made  the  world 
in  its  process  from  eternity  into  time  with  the  explana¬ 
tion  :  ob  yap  tic  avToo  Toude  rod  zzavros  r 07:09,  rj  (peque 

est  alter  hujus  universi  locus ,  quam  anima),  while  the 
ideality  of  time  is  expressed  in  the  words :  del  dk  om  k'Zto&ev 
tt/S  l&l-iftdvetv  tov  xpovov ,  wazzej)  obde  r ov  aicdva  k'£aj  rob 

ovTo ?  ( oportet  autem  nequaquam  extra  animan  tempus  acci- 
pere ).  That  hel  (hereafter)  is  the  opposite  of  £v#ade 
(here),  and  a  very  favorite  conception,  with  him,  which 
he  more  nearly  explains  by  « oapo<s  goyros  and  Koapos  aia&yTos 
mundus  intelligibilis  et  sensibilis,  also  by  rd  avia ,  koI  rd  Kdrw. 
The  ideality  of  time  receives,  in  chapters  xi.  and  xii., 
very  good  elucidation.  Attached  thereto  is  the  beautiful 
explanation,  that  we,  in  our  temporal  condition,  are  not 
what  we  ought  to  be  and  might  be;  hence,  that  we 
always  expect  better  things  of  the  future,  and  look  toward 
the  fulfillment  of  that  which  is  wanting  to  us,  whence 
arises  the  future  and  its  condition  time  (c.  2  et  3).  A 
further  confirmation  of  the  Indian  origin  is  afforded  us  by 
Iamblichos  (<(  De  Mysteriis,”  sect.  4,  c.  4  et  5),  in  his  ex¬ 
position  of  the  doctrine  of  Metempsychosis,  where  also 
may  be  found  (sect.  5,  c.  6),  the  doctrine  of  the  finite 
liberation  and  salvation  from  the  bonds  of  birth  and 
death,  pu/y?  Kaftaptris,  kou  Teleiajfft?,  nal  77  dnd  T7j$  yevloews 
anaXlayij,  and  ( C.  1 2  )  to  iv  r a~s  Oofftac?  7 zvp  dizoXost  rwv 

rij?  yevlffeax?  deap cSv,  in  other  words,  the  promise  con¬ 
tained  in  all  Indian  religious  books,  which  is  designated 
in  English  by  final  emancipation  or  salvation.  In  addi¬ 
tion  to  this  there  is,  lastly  (a.  a.  o.,  sect.  7,  c.  2),  the 
account  of  an  Egyptian  symbol  which  represents  a  crea¬ 
tive  God  sitting  on  the  lotus;  obviously  the  world-creating 
Brahma  sitting  on  the  lotus-flower,  corresponding  to  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


i59 


navel  of  Vishnu,  as  he  is  frequently  represented,  e.g.,  in 
Langles,  (<  Monuments  de  l’Hindoustan,®  vol.  i.,  ad  p.  175; 
in  Coleman’s  “Mythology  of  the  Hindus,®  tab.  5,  etc. 
This  symbol  is  extremely  important  as  a  sure  proof  of 
the  Hindu  origin  of  the  Egyptian  religion,  as,  in  the  same 
respect,  is  the  report  also  given  by  Porphyry  (<  De  Absti- 
nentia,®  lib.  ii. ,  that  in  Egypt  the  cow  was  holy,  and 
might  not  be  slaughtered.  Even  the  circumstance  related 
by  Porphyry  in  his  life  of  Plotinos,  that  the  latter,  after 
he  had  been  for  many  years  the  disciple  of  Ammonius 
Saccas,  had  intended  going  with  the  army  of  Gordian  to 
Persia  and  India,  but  was  prevented  by  the  overthrow 
and  death  of  Gordian,  indicates  that  the  doctrines  of 
Ammonius  were  of  Indian  origin,  and  that  Plotinos  had 
intended,  at  last,  to  acquire  them  more  purely  from  their 
source.  The  same  Porphyry  furnished  a  complete  theory 
on  Metempsychosis,  which  is  conceived  entirely  in  the 
Indian  spirit,  although  impregnated  with  the  Platonic 
Psychology ;  it  is  given  in  the  Stobaeos  *  Eclogues,  ®  1.  i. , 
c.  52>  §  54- 


Section  8. 

THE  GNOSTICS. 

The  Cabalistic  and  Gnostic  philosophies,  with  whose 
originators,  as  Jews  and  Christians,  Monotheism  stood  in 
the  forefront,  are  attempts  to  get  rid  of  the  flagrant 
contradiction  between  the  production  of  this  world  by 
an  almighty,  all-good,  and  all-wise  being,  and  the  sadly 
deficient  construction  of  the  same  world.  They  intro¬ 
duce,  therefore,  between  the  world  and  the  world-cause 
a  series  of  intermediate  beings,  by  whose  fault  a  decline, 
and  thereby  the  world,  has  arisen;  hence  they  roll  off 
the  fault,  as  it  were,  from  the  sovereign  on  to  his  min¬ 
isters.  This  proceeding  had  already  been  indicated  in 
the  myth  of  the  fall,  which  is  in  every  way  the  culmi¬ 
nating  point  of  Judaism.  These  beings  are,  with  the 
Gnostics,  the  izArjpwpa,  the  aeons,  the  S/I77,  the  demiurgos, 
etc.  The  series  was  lengthened  at  pleasure  by  each 
Gnostic. 


i6o 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


The  whole  proceeding  is  analogous  to  that  whereby, 
in  order  to  modify  the  contradiction  involved  in  the  as¬ 
sumed  connection  and  reciprocal  action  of  a  material 
and  immaterial  substance  in  man,  physiological  philoso¬ 
phers  have  sought  to  interpose  mediate  essences,  such 
as  nervous  fluidity,  nervous  ether,  vital  spirits,  and  so 
forth.  Both  seek  to  hide  what  they  are  not  able  to 
abolish. 


\ 


Section  9. 

SCOTUS  ERIGENA. 

This  remarkable  man  affords  us  the  interesting  spec¬ 
tacle  of  the  struggle  between  recognized  and  apprehended 
truth  and  local  dogmas,  fixed  by  early  indoctrination  and 
grown  beyond  the  reach  of  all  doubt,  or  at  least  of  all 
direct  attack,  side  by  side  with  the  endeavor  proceeding 
from  a  noble  nature  to  reduce  to  harmony,  by  some 
means  or  other,  the  dissonance  which  had  thus  arisen. 
This  can  indeed  only  happen,  in  so  far  as  the  dogmas  are 
turned,  twisted,  and  where  necessary  distorted,  until 
nolentes  volentes  they  fit  into  the  recognized  truth,  which 
remains  the  dominating  principle,  but  is,  notwithstand¬ 
ing,  obliged  to  go  about  in  a  strange  and  uncomfortable 
garb.  Erigena  knows  how  to  carry  out  this  method, 
and  his  great  work,  <(  De  Divisione  Naturae,”  is  a  com¬ 
plete  success  until  at  last  he  has  to  make  up  his  account 
with  the  origin  of  evil  and  of  sin,  together  with  the 
threatened  pains  of  hell,  when  he  comes  to  grief,  more 
particularly  in  the  optimism  which  is  a  consequence  of 
his  Jewish  Monotheism.  He  teaches  in  the  fifth  book 
the  return  of  all  things  to  God,  and  the  metaphysical 
unity  and  indivisibility  of  all  humanity,  and  even  of  all 
nature.  The  question  now  arises,  where  does  sin  remain  ? 
It  cannot  be  with  God.  Where  is  hell,  with  its  endless 
pains,  such  as  have  been  promised  ?  Who  is  to  go  there  ? 
Humanity  is  saved,  and  that  in  its  entirety.  The  dogma 
here  remains  unconquerable.  Erigena  writhes  miserably 
through  diffuse  sophisms,  which  turn  in  the  end  on  words, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


161 


and  is  finally  driven  to  contradiction  and  absurdity,  es¬ 
pecially  since  the  question  as  to  the  origin  of  sin  has 
inevitably  crept  in,  and  yet  the  latter  can  neither  lie  in 
God  nor  in  the  will  created  by  him,  since  otherwise  God 
would  be  the  originator  of  sin,  which  last  point  he  sees 
clearly  (see  p.  287  of  the  Oxford  editio  princeps  of  1681). 
He  is  now  driven  to  absurdities:  sin  must  have  neither  a 
cause  nor  a  subject:  malum  incausale  est  .  .  .  penitus  i?i- 

causale  et  insub st antiale  est  ( Ibid .).  The  true  cause  of 
this  stumbling-block  is,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  emancipa¬ 
tion  of  humanity  and  the  world,  which  is  obviously  of 
Indian  origin,  presupposes  the  Indian  doctrine  according 
to  which  the  origin  of  the  world  (this  Sansara  of  the 
Buddhists )  is  itself  evil,  proceeding,  namely,  from  a  sin¬ 
ful  act  of  Brahma,  which  Brahma,  again,  we  ourselves  are, 
for  the  Indian  mythology  is  everywhere  transparent.  On 
the  contrary,  in  Christianity  this  doctrine  of  the  emanci¬ 
pation  of  the  world  had  to  be  based  on  the  Jewish  Theism, 
where  the  Lord  not  only  made  the  world,  but  afterward 
found  it  very  good:  navra  na\a  Xtav.  Hinc  illce  lacrimce: 
hence  arise  those  difficulties  which  Erigena  fully  recog¬ 
nized,  although  he,  in  his  age,  did  not  venture  to  attack 
the  evil  by  the  root.  Meanwhile  he  has  the  Hindustanic 
mildness.  He  rejects  the  eternal  damnation  and  punish¬ 
ment  asserted  by  Christianity.  All  creatures  rational, 
animal,  vegetable,  and  lifeless  must,  according  to  their 
inner  essence,  in  the  necessary  course  of  nature,  attain  to 
eternal  happiness,  for  they  have  proceeded  from  the  eter¬ 
nally  good.  But  only  for  the  saints  and  righteous  is  the 
complete  unity  with  God,  Deijicatio.  For  the  rest,  Erigena 
is  sufficiently  honest  as  not  to  hide  the  great  embarrassment 
in  which  the  origin  of  evil  places  him;  he  expounds  it 
clearly  in  the  passage  quoted  in  the  fifth  book.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  origin  of  evil  is  the  rock  on  which  Theism,  no 
less  than  Pantheism,  splits,  for  both  imply  Optimism.  But 
evil  and  sin,  both  in  their  fearful  magnitude,  are  not  to  be 
explained  away,  while  the  threatened  punishments  for  the 
latter  only  increase  the  former.  Whence  all  this,  now,  in  a 
world  which  is  either  itself  a  God,  or  the  well-intentioned 
work  of  a  God  ?  If  the  theistic  opponents  of  Pantheism  ex¬ 
claim  against  it,  (<What!  all  evil,  terrible,  abominable 


1 62  SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 

entities  are  God  ? ®  the  Pantheists  may  reply :  (<  How !  all 
these  evil,  terrible,  abominable  entities  have  been  pro¬ 
duced  by  a  God  de  gaiety  de  coeur .w  We  find  Erigena 
in  the  same  difficulty  in  the  other  work  of  his  which  has 
come  down  to  us,  viz,  in  the  book,  (<  De  Predestina- 
tione,  ®  which  nevertheless  is  far  inferior  to  the  (<  De  Di- 
visione  Naturae, ®  and  where  he  appears,  not  in  the 
character  of  philosopher,  but  of  theologian.  Here  also 
he  plagues  himself  miserably  with  contradictions  having 
their  ultimate  ground  in  the  fact  that  Christianity  is 
founded  on  Judaism.  But  his  endeavors  place  them  only 
in  a  still  clearer  light.  God  is  all,  all  and  in  all,  and  has 
made  all ;  thus  much  is  fixed,  <(  consequently  also  sin  and 
evil.®  This  inevitable  consequence  has  to  be  got  rid  of, 
and  Erigena  finds  himself  necessitated  to  put  forward 
the  most  miserable  word-juggles.  If  evil  and  sin  are  not, 
then  nothing  is  —  not  even  the  devil!  Or  else  freewill 
is  to  blame  for  it.  God  has  indeed  created  this,  but 
created  it  free,  and  therefore  it  concerns  him  not  what 
it  does  afterward.  For  it  was  free,  that  is,  it  could  act 
so  and  otherwise;  it  might  therefore  be  just  as  well  good 
as  bad.  Bravo!  but  the  truth  is  that  free  being  and 
created  being  are  two  mutually  destructive  and  therefore 
contradictory  qualities;  hence  the  assumption  that  God 
has  created  beings,  and  has  at  the  same  time  imparted 
to  them  freedom  of  will,  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  he 
has  created  them,  and  at  the  same  time  he  has  not  cre¬ 
ated  them.  For  operari  sequitur  esse,  i.  e.,  the  effects  or 
actions  of  any  possible  thing  can  never  be  anything  else 
than  the  consequences  of  its  nature,  which  is  only  known 
through  them.  Hence  a  being,  in  order  to  be  free  in 
the  sense  here  required,  must  have  no  nature,  that  is, 
must  be  nothing,  or,  in  other  words,  must  both  be  and 
not  be  at  once.  For  what  is  must  also  be  something  ;  an 
existence  without  essence  cannot  even  be  thought.  If  a 
being  is  created,  it  is  created  as  it  is  created,  and  therefore 
it  is  badly  created  if  it  is  badly  created,  and  badly  created 
if  it  acts  badly,  i.  e.,  its  effects  are  bad.  As  a  conse¬ 
quence  the  guilt  of  the  world,  which  is  just  as  little  to 
be  explained  away  as  its  evil,  always  shifts  itself  back 
on  its  originator,  and  Scotus  Erigena,  like  Augustine 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


163 

before  him,  is  pitiably  occupied  in  endeavoring  to  relieve 
him  of  it. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  being  is  morally  free,  it  can¬ 
not  have  been  created,  but  must  have  aseity,  that  is, 
must  be  an  original  thing  existing  by  virtue  of  his  own 
power  and  completeness,  and  not  referable  to  another. 
Its  existence  is  then  its  own  act  of  creation,  which  un¬ 
folds  and  expands  itself  in  time,  exhibiting  once  for  all 
the  distinct  character  of  this  being,  which  is,  neverthe¬ 
less,  its  own  work,  for  all  of  whose  manifestations  the 
responsibility  rests  upon  itself  alone.  If,  now,  a  being 
is  responsible  for  its  action — if  it  is  to  be  accountable — 
it  must  be  free.  Thus,  from  the  responsibility  and  im- 
putability  which  our  conscience  declares,  it  follows  very 
certainly  that  the  will  is  free,  but  from  this,  again,  that 
it  is  the  original  thing  itself,  and  hence,  that  not  merely 
the  action,  but  also  the  existence  and  essence  of  man  are 
his  own  work.  Respecting  all  this  I  refer  the  reader  to 
my  treatise  on  the  freedom  of  the  will,  where  it  will  be 
found  completely  and  irrefutably  expounded.  For  this 
reason  the  professors  of  philosophy  have  sought,  by  the 
most  complete  silence,  to  boycott  this  crowned  prize  essay 
of  mine.  The  guilt  of  sin  and  evil  necessarily  falls  from 
nature  back  on  its  author.  But  if  the  latter  is  Will  man¬ 
ifesting  itself  in  all  its  phenomena,  the  guilt  has  come 
back  to  the  right  man;  if,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  God, 
the  origin  of  sin  and  evil  contradict  his  divinity. 

In  reading  Dionysius  Areopagita,  to  whom  Erigena  so 
often  refers,  I  have  found  that  the  former  is  in  every  re¬ 
spect  his  prototype.  The  pantheism  of  Erigena,  as  well 
as  his  theory  of  sin  and  evil,  are  to  be  found,  in  their 
main  features  at  least,  already  in  Dionysius,  although 
Dionysius  only  indicates  what  Erigena  has  developed,  ex¬ 
pressed  with  boldness,  and  expounded  with  fire.  Erigena 
had  infinitely  more  genius  than  Dionysius,  but  Dionysius 
had  given  him  the  material  and  the  direction  of  his  re¬ 
flections,  and  consequently  prepared  the  way  for  him. 
That  Dionysius  is  ungenuine  does  not  affect  the  question, 
since  it  is  indifferent  what  the  author  of  the  book  <(  De 
Divinis  Nominibus®  was  called.  As  he,  in  the  mean¬ 
time,  probably  lived  in  Alexandria,  I  believe  that,  in  a 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


164 

roundabout  way  unknown  to  us,  he  was  the  channel 
through  which  a  drop  of  Indian  wisdom  may  have  reached 
Erigena,  since,  as  Colebrooke  has  observed  in  his  treatise 
on  the  philosophy  of  the  Hindus  (in  Colebrooke’s  (<  Mis¬ 
cellaneous  Essays,®  vol.  i. ,  p.  244),  the  proposition  III,  of 
the  ((  Karika  of  Kapila »  is  to  be  found  in  Erigena. 


Section  10. 

SCHOLASTICISM. 

I  should  place  the  properly  distinctive  character  of 
Scholasticism  in  that  its  chief  criterion  of  truth  is  Scrip¬ 
ture,  to  which  one  may  always  appeal  from  every  con¬ 
clusion  of  reason.  To  its  specialities  belongs,  that  its 
style  has  throughout  a  polemical  character.  Every  inves¬ 
tigation  is  soon  transformed  into  a  controversy,  whose 
pro  et  contra  generate  new  pro  et  contra,  and  thereby 
furnish  its  material,  which  without  it  would  soon  run 
dry.  The  hidden  ultimate  root  of  this  speciality  con¬ 
sists,  however,  in  the  antagonism  between  Reason  and 
Revelation. 

The  reciprocal  justification  between  Realism  and  Nom¬ 
inalism,  and  thereby  the  possibility  of  the  so  long  and 
obstinately  fought-out  quarrel,  may  be  rendered  intel¬ 
ligible  in  the  following  way. 

I  call  the  most  diverse  things  red  if  they  have  this 
color.  Obviously  red  is  a  mere  name  by  which  I  desig¬ 
nate  this  phenomenon,  no  matter  where  it  appears.  In 
the  same  way  all  common  notions  are  mere  names  to 
designate  qualities  appearing  in  diverse  things.  These 
things,  on  the  contrary,  are  the  actual  and  real,  so  that 
Nominalism  is  obviously  right. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  observe  that  all  those 
actual  things,  of  which  alone  reality  can  be  predicated, 
are  temporal,  and  consequently  pass  away,  while  the 
qualities,  as  red,  hard,  soft,  life,  plant,  horse,  man,  which 
these  names  signify,  continue  to  exist  irrespective  of  this, 
and  consequently  are  always  there,  we  find  that  the 
qualities  which  these  names  designate  by  means  of  com- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


165 


mon  conceptions,  are  conceived  through  their  indestruct¬ 
ible  existence,  and  therefore  have  reality,  which  is 
consequently  to  be  attributed  to  the  conceptions,  and 
not  to  the  particular  being,  whence  it  follows  that  Real¬ 
ism  is  right. 

Nominalism  leads  directly  to  Materialism,  for  after  the 
removal  of  all  qualities  matter  alone  remains  in  the  last 
resort.  If  conceptions  are  mere  names,  and  the  singular 
things  the  Real,  their  qualities  as  partaking  of  their 
singular  nature  would  be  transient.  There  remains,  there¬ 
fore,  as  that  which  continues,  which  is  real,  only  matter. 
But,  strictly  speaking,  the  justification  of  realism  above 
given  does  not  belong  to  it,  but  to  the  Platonic  doctrine 
of  ideas,  of  which  it  is  the  extension.  The  eternal  forms 
and  qualities  of  natural  things,  efrfy,  it  is  which  subsist 
through  all  change,  and  to  which  therefore  a  reality  of 
a  higher  kind  is  to  be  attributed  than  to  the  individuals 
in  which  they  display  themselves.  On  the  contrary,  this 
cannot  be  conceded  to  the  mere  abstractions,  which  are 
not  perceivable.  What,  for  example,  is  the  Real  in  such 
conceptions  as  <(  relation,  difference,  separation,  injury, 
indeterminateness,®  etc.? 

A  certain  relation,  or  at  least  a  parallelism,  of  apposi¬ 
tions  is  discernable  when  one  places  Plato  against  Aris¬ 
totle,  Augustine  against  Pelagius,  the  Realists  against 
the  Nominalists.  One  might  even  assert  that  there  is  a 
certain  kind  of  polar  repulsion  of  thought  manifested 
here,  which,  by  a  most  extraordinary  coincidence,  ex¬ 
pressed  itself  for  the  first  time,  and  most  decisively,  in 
two  very  great  men,  who  happened  to  be  contemporary, 
and  to  live  near  each  other. 


Section  ii. 

BACON  OF  VERULAM. 

In  another  and  more  specifically  definite  sense  than 
that  indicated,  the  express  and  intentional  antithesis  to 
Aristotle  was  Bacon  of  Verulam.  The  former,  namely, 
had  for  the  first  time  systematically  expounded  the  correct 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


1 66 

method  of  attaining  from  universal  to  particular  truths, 
in  other  words,  the  way  downward,  which  is  the  same  as 
the  syllogism,  the  organum  Aristotelis.  On  the  other 
hand,  Bacon  exhibited  the  way  upward,  in  so  far  as  he 
expounded  the  method  of  attaining  from  special  to  gen¬ 
eral  truths.  This  is  induction  in  contradistinction  to 
deduction,  and  its  exposition  is  the  novum  organum,  which 
expression,  chosen  in  opposition  to  Aristotle,  says  in 
effect, — <(  It  is  quite  a  different  manner  of  attacking  the 
subject.®  The  error  of  Aristotle,  or  rather  the  error  of 
the  Aristotelians,  lay  in  the  assumption  that  they  already 
possessed  all  truth  —  that  truth,  namely,  is  contained  in 
their  axioms,  to  wit,  in  certain  a  priori  propositions,  or 
propositions  which  count  for  such,  and  that,  in  order  to 
gain  particular  truths,  deduction  from  the  former  is  all  that 
is  necessary.  An  Aristotelian  instance  of  this  is  given 
in  the  books  <(  De  Coelo.  ®  Bacon  shows  on  the  contrary, 
with  justice,  that  the  above  axioms  did  not  have  such  a 
content,  that  the  truth  did  not  lie  at  all  in  the  system  of 
human  knowledge  at  that  time  in  vogue,  but  rather  out¬ 
side  it,  and  that  therefore  it  was  not  to  be  developed  from 
it,  but  had  to  be  introduced  into  it,  and  that  as  a  conse¬ 
quence  universal  and  true  propositions  of  a  great  and 
rich  content  had  first  to  be  won  through  induction. 

The  Schoolmen,  led  by  Aristotle,  thought,  we  will  in 
the  first  place  establish  the  universal;  the  particular  will 
flow  therefrom,  or  may  afterward  find  a  place  therein  as 
it  can.  We  will,  therefore,  first  of  all  establish  what  ac¬ 
crues  to  the  ens,  to  the  thing  in  general.  The  speciality 
of  particular  things  may  afterward  be  gradually  added, 
and  of  course  through  experience,  but  the  latter  can  never 
alter  anything  in  the  universal.  Bacon  said,  rather,  we 
will  in  the  first  instance  learn  to  know  the  individual 
things  as  completely  as  possible,  then  we  shall  at  last 
know  what  the  thing  in  general  is. 

Meanwhile,  Bacon  is  inferior  to  Aristotle  in  so  far  as 
his  method,  leading  upward,  is  never  so  accurate,  certain, 
and  infallible  as  that  of  Aristotle,  leading  downward. 
Indeed,  Bacon  himself  has,  in  his  physical  investigations, 
set  aside  the  rules  of  his  method  as  given  in  the  (<  New 
Organon. n 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


167 


Bacon’s  attention  was  chiefly  turned  to  physical  science. 
What  he  did  for  this,  to  wit,  beginning  from  the  begin¬ 
ning,  Descartes  did  immediately  afterward  for  meta¬ 
physics. 


Section  12. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  MODERNS. 

In  the  arithmetic  books  the  accuracy  of  the  solution  of 
an  example  is  wont  to  be  announced  by  the  balancing 
of  the  same,  that  is,  by  the  fact  that  no  remainder  is 
left.  With  the  resolution  of  the  riddle  of  the  world  it  is 
similar.  All  systems  are  sums  which  do  not  balance; 
they  leave  a  remainder,  or,  if  a  chemical  simile  be  pre¬ 
ferred,  an  unresolved  deposit.  This  consists  in  that,  if 
one  draws  a  correct  conclusion  from  their  premises,  the 
results  do  not  answer  to  the  real  world  lying  before  us, 
but  rather  that  many  sides  of  it  remain  on  the  hypothe¬ 
sis  quite  inexplicable.  Thus,  for  example,  with  the 
materialistic  systems,  which  make  the  world  arise  from 
a  matter  possessed  of  simply  mechanical  qualities  and  in 
accordance  with  their  laws,  neither  the  complete  and 
remarkable  adaptability  of  ends  to  means  in  nature,  nor 
the  existence  of  consciousness  in  which  this  same  matter 
is  first  presented,  agree.  This  then  is  their  remainder. 
With  the  theistic  systems,  on  the  contrary,  and  not  more 
so  with  the  pantheistic,  the  overweening  physical  evils 
and  the  moral  obliquity  of  the  world  cannot  be  brought 
into  harmony.  These,  therefore,  stand  over  as  a  remain¬ 
der,  or  lie  as  an  unresolved  deposit.  It  is  true  that  in 
such  cases  there  is  no  lack  of  sophisms,  or,  where  neces¬ 
sary,  of  mere  words  and  phrases  in  order  to  cover  up 
such  remainders,  but  such  devices  will  not  hold  water 
for  long.  Individual  errors  in  the  reckoning  are  then 
sought  for,  since  the  sum  will  not  balance,  until  finally 
it  is  obliged  to  be  confessed  that  the  starting  point  has 
been  wrong.  If,  again,  the  thorough-going  consequence 
and  harmony  of  all  the  propositions  of  a  system  be 
accompanied  at  every  step  by  a  similar  thorough-going 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


168 

harmony  with  the  world  of  experience,  without  any  dis¬ 
cord  being  audible  between  the  two,  this  is  the  criterion 
of  its  truth,  the  required  balancing  of  the  arithmetical 
sum.  In  the  same  way,  if  the  starting  point  has  been 
false,  it  is  as  much  to  say  that  from  the  beginning  the 
matter  has  not  been  seized  by  the  right  end,  whereby 
one  is  afterward  led  from  error  to  error,  for  in  philoso¬ 
phy,  as  in  many  other  things,  everything  turns  on 
whether  one  seizes  it  by  the  right  end.  But  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  the  world  which  have  to  be  explained  present 
countless  ends  to  us,  of  which  one  only  can  be  the  right 
one;  they  resemble  an  intricate  tangle  of  thread,  with 
many  false  end-threads  hanging  from  it.  He  who  finds 
out  the  right  one  can  disentangle  the  whole.  But  one 
there  is  which  disentangles  itself  easily  from  the  others, 
and  from  this  it  may  be  known  that  it  is  the  right 
end.  One  may  also  compare  it  to  a  labyrinth,  which 
offers  a  hundred  entrances,  opening  out  into  corridors, 
all  of  which,  after  various  long  and  intricate  windings, 
finally  lead  out  again,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  one, 
whose  windings  really  take  us  to  the  centre,  where  the 
idol  stands.  If  one  has  hit  upon  this  entrance  one  will 
not  fail  to  find  the  way,  but  one  can  never  attain  to  the 
goal  by  any  other  way.  I  do  not  conceal  my  opinion 
that  only  the  Will  in  us  is  the  right  end  of  the  thread- 
tangle,  the  true  entrance  to  the  labyrinth. 

Now  Descartes  proceeded  on  the  example  of  the  meta¬ 
physics  of  Aristotle  and  the  conception  of  substance,  and 
therewith  we  see  also  all  his  successors  accommodate 
themselves.  He  assumed,  however,  two  kinds  of  sub¬ 
stance,  the  thinking  and  the  extended.  These  were  sup¬ 
posed  to  act  on  one  another  through  the  injluxus  physicus, 
which  soon  proved  itself  to  be  his  remainder.  It  took 
place,  namely,  not  merely  from  without  inward,  in  the 
presentment  of  the  corporeal  world,  but  also  from  within 
outward,  between  the  Will  (which  was  unhesitatingly  as¬ 
signed  to  thought)  and  the  actions  of  the  body.  The 
closer  relations  between  these  two  kinds  of  substance 
were  the  main  problem  on  account  of  which  such  great 
difficulties  arose,  and  in  consequence  of  which  men  were 
driven  to  the  system  of  causes  occasionelles  and  of  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


169 


harmonia  prcestabilita ,  after  the  spiritns  animates  which 
had  sufficed  for  the  matter  with  Descartes,  would  no 
longer  serve.  Malebranche,  for  instance,  holds  the  in- 
fiuxus  physicus  for  unthinkable;  but  in  this  he  does  not 
take  into  consideration  that  the  same  thing  is  assumed 
without  question  in  the  creation  and  direction  of  the 
corporeal  world  by  a  God  who  is  also  a  spirit.  He  re¬ 
places  it  therefore  by  the  cause  causio?ielle  and  nous  voy- 
ons  tout  en  Dieu  —  here  lies  his  remainder.  Spinoza,  also, 
treading  in  the  footsteps  of  his  teacher,  proceeded  from 
the  above  conception  of  substance  just  as  though  it  were 
a  given  thing.  He  nevertheless  declared  both  kinds  of 
substance,  the  thinking  and  extended,  for  one  and  the 
same,  whereby  the  old  difficulty  was  avoided.  For  this 
reason,  however,  his  philosophy  was  chiefly  negative, 
hinging  on  a  mere  negation  of  the  two  great  Cartesian 
antitheses,  for  he  also  extended  his  identification  to  the 
other  antithesis  erected  by  Descartes,  God  and  the 
World.  The  latter  was  nevertheless,  properly  speaking, 
a  mere  mode  of  teaching  or  form  of  presentation.  It 
would  have  been  too  offensive  to  have  said  straight  out: 
(<  It  is  not  true  that  God  has  made  this  world,  but  it  ex¬ 
ists  by  its  own  perfection  of  power;®  hence  he  chose  an 
indirect  phrase,  and  said :  <(  The  world  itself  is  God ;  ®  to 
maintain  which  would  never  have  occurred  to  him,  if 
instead  of  proceeding  from  Judaism,  he  had  started 
straightforwardly  from  nature  itself.  This  phrase  served 
at  the  same  time  to  give  his  doctrines  the  appearance  of 
positivity,  though  they  are  at  bottom  merely  negative; 
and  he  therefore  leaves  the  world  unexplained,  in  that 
his  doctrines  issue  in :  <(  The  world  is  because  it  is ;  and 

is  as  it  is  because  it  so  is.®  (With  this  phrase  Fichte 
was  accustomed  to  mystify  his  students.)  The  deifi¬ 
cation  of  the  world,  arisen  in  the  above  manner,  did 
not  admit  of  any  true  ethics,  and  was,  besides,  in  fla¬ 
grant  contradiction  with  the  physical  evils  and  the  moral 
recklessness  of  this  world.  Here,  then,  is  Spinoza’s  re¬ 
mainder. 

The  conception  of  substance  from  which  Spinoza  starts, 
he  regards,  as  already  said,  as  something  given.  He,  in¬ 
deed,  defines  it  according  to  its  ends,  but  he  does  not 


170 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


trouble  himself  as  to  its  origin.  For  it  was  Locke,  who, 
shortly  after  him,  propounded  the  great  doctrine  that  a 
philosopher,  who  wishes  to  deduce  or  demonstrate  any¬ 
thing  from  conceptions,  has  in  the  first  place  to  investi¬ 
gate  the  origin  of  such  conception;  for  its  content  and 
what  follows  therefrom  is  determined  entirely  by  its  ori¬ 
gin,  as  the  source  of  all  knowledge  attainable  by  means 
of  the  same.  But  had  Spinoza  investigated  the  origin  of 
this  conception  of  substance,  he  must  have  found  at  last 
that  it  is  simply  matter,  and  therefore  that  the  true 
content  of  the  conception  is  nothing  other  than  its  essen¬ 
tial  and  a  priori  assignable  qualities.  Indeed,  everything 
attributed  by  Spinoza  to  his  substance  finds  its  confirma¬ 
tion  in  matter,  and  only  there;  it  is  uncaused,  that  is, 
causeless,  eternal,  singular,  and  unique,  and  its  modifica¬ 
tions  are  extension  and  consciousness,  the  latter,  of  course, 
as  the  exclusive  quality  of  the  brain.  Spinoza  is,  there¬ 
fore,  an  unconscious  materialist,  yet  the  matter,  which, 
when  carried  out,  realizes  and  empirically  confirms  his 
conceptions,  is  not  the  falsely-assumed  and  atomistic 
matter  of  Demokritos  and  of  the  later  French  material¬ 
ists,  which  has  none  but  mechanical  qualities,  but  a  cor¬ 
rectly  conceived  matter,  with  all  its  inexplicable  qualities 
attached  to  it;  for  this  distinction  I  refer  the  reader  to 
my  chief  work,  vol.  ii. ,  chap,  xxiv.,  p.  315  seq.  (3d  ed.,  p. 
357  seq.).  This  method  of  assuming  the  conception  of 
substance  unnoticed,  in  order  to  make  it  the  starting 
point,  we  find  already  with  the  Eleatics,  as  may  especially 
be  seen  from  the  Aristotelean  book  (<  De  Xenophane,” 
etc.  For  Xenophanes  also  proceeds  from  the  ov,  that  is, 
from  substance,  and  its  qualities  are  demonstrated  with¬ 
out  its  previously  being  questioned  or  its  being  asked 
whence  he  has  his  knowledge  of  such  a  thing.  If  this 
had  been  done  it  would  clearly  have  appeared  what  he 
was  really  speaking  about,  that  is,  what  perception  ulti¬ 
mately  lies  at  the  foundation  of  his  conception  and  im¬ 
parts  to  it  reality,  and  in  the  end  it  would  have  been 
seen  to  be  matter  only,  of  which  all  that  he  says  is  true. 
In  the  following  chapters  on  Zeno  the  coincidence  with 
Spinoza  extends  itself  even  to  the  style  and  the  expres¬ 
sion.  One  can  therefore  scarcely  refrain  from  assuming 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


171 


that  Spinoza  had  known  and  used  this  work,  since  at  his 
time,  Aristotle,  even  though  attacked  by  Bacon,  still 
stood  in  high  reputation,  and  good  editions  with  Latin 
version  were  to  be  had.  In  this  case  Spinoza  would  be  a 
mere  resuscitator  of  the  Eleatics  as  Gassendi  was  of  Epi¬ 
curus.  We  see  once  more,  then,  how  extremely  rare  in 
any  department  of  thought  or  knowledge  is  the  really 
new  and  wholly  original 

The  above  procedure  of  Spinoza  on  the  conception  of 
substance,  moreover,  rests,  especially  in  its  formal  aspect, 
on  the  false  assumption  which  he  had  taken  over  from 
his  teacher  Descartes,  and  he  in  his  turn  from  Anselm 
of  Canterbury,  to  wit,  that  existentia  could  proceed  from 
essentia ,  i.  e. ,  that  from  mere  conception  an  existence 
could  be  deduced  which  would  accordingly  be  a  neces¬ 
sary  one;  or,  in  other  words,  that  by  virtue  of  the  na¬ 
ture  or  definition  of  something  merely  thought,  it  should 
be  necessary  that  it  should  be  no  longer  something 
merely  thought,  but  something  really  existent.  Des¬ 
cartes  had  applied  this  false  assumption  to  the  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  ens  perfectissimum ;  but  Spinoza  took  that  of 
substantia  or  causa  sui  (which  latter  expresses  a  contra- 
dictio  in  adjecto ) ;  see  his  first  definition,  which  is  his 
nj>u)Tov  tpeodos  in  the  introduction  of  the  Ethics,  *  and 
then  proposition  7  of  the  first  book.  The  difference  be¬ 
tween  the  basal  conceptions  of  both  philosophers  consists 
almost  entirely  in  expression,  but  their  employment  as 
starting  points,  that  is  as  given,  is  with  the  one  as  with 
the  other  founded  on  the  mistake  of  making  a  perceptual 
arise  out  of  an  abstract  presentment;  while  in  truth  all 
abstract  presentment  arises  from  the  perceptual,  and  is 
therefore  based  on  the  latter.  We  have  here,  therefore, 
a  fundamental  vazepov  irpozepov. 

Spinoza  encumbered  himself  with  a  special  difficulty  by 
calling  his  one  and  only  substance  Deus ,  for  since  this 
word  was  already  in  use  for  the  designation  of  quite 
another  conception,  he  had  continually  to  fight  against 
misunderstandings  which  arose  from  it;  the  reader,  in¬ 
stead  of  the  conception  assigned  to  it  by  Spinoza’s  first 
explanations,  always  attaching  to  it  that  which  it  other¬ 
wise  signifies.  If  he  had  not  employed  the  word  he 


172 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


would  have  been  relieved  of  long  and  tedious  expositions 
in  the  first  book.  But  he  did  so  in  order  that  his  doc¬ 
trines  might  find  less  opposition,  an  object  in  which  he 
nevertheless  failed.  In  consequence,  a  certain  double 
sense  pervades  his  whole  exposition,  which  one  might  in 
a  manner  term  allegorical,  especially  as  he  adopts  the 
same  plan  with  one  or  two  other  notions,  as  already  ob¬ 
served  (in  the  first  essay).  How  much  clearer,  and  con¬ 
sequently  better,  would  his  so-called  (<  Ethics  *  have 
turned  out  if  he  had  spoken  straightforwardly  what  was 
in  his  mind,  and  called  things  by  their  name;  and  if  he 
had  presented  his  thoughts,  together  with  their  grounds, 
in  an  upright  and  natural  manner,  instead  of  making 
them  appear  laced-up  in  the  Spanish  boots  of  proposi¬ 
tions,  demonstrations,  scholia,  and  corollaries,  in  a  garb 
borrowed  from  geometry,  which,  instead  of  giving  to 
philosophy  the  certainty  of  the  former,  loses  all  signifi¬ 
cance  as  soon  as  geometry,  with  its  construction  of  con¬ 
ceptions,  ceases  to  stand  inside  it,  whence  the  motto  here 
applies,  cucullus  non  facit  monicum. 

In  the  second  book  he  expounds  the  two  modes  of  his 
one  substance  as  extension  and  presentment  ( extensio  et 
cogitatio ),  which  is  obviously  a  false  division,  since  ex¬ 
tension  exists  only  for  and  in  presentment,  and  ought 
therefore  to  have  been,  not  opposed,  but  subordinated, 
to  the  latter. 

Spinoza  everywhere  expressly  and  emphatically  sounds 
the  praises  of  leetitia,  and  sets  it  up  as  condition  and 
sign  of  every  praiseworthy  action,  while  he  rejects  un¬ 
conditionally  all  tristitia  —  although  his  Old  Testament 
might  have  told  him,  <(  Sorrow  is  better  than  laughter, 
for  by  the  sadness  of  the  countenance  the  heart  is  made 
glad w  (« Ecclesiastes »  vii.  3) — he  does  all  this  merely 
for  love  of  logicality,  for  if  this  world  is  a  God,  it  is  an 
end  to  itself,  and  must  glorify  and  rejoice  at  its  own  ex¬ 
istence —  saute  marquis!  Semper  merry,  nunquam  sad! 
Pantheism  is  essentially  and  necessarily  optimism.  This 
compulsory  optimism  forces  Spinoza  to  many  other  false 
consequences,  among  which  the  absurd  and  very  often 
monstrous  results  of  his  moral  philosophy  take  the  first 
rank,  rising  indeed  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  his  (<  Trac- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


173 


tatus  Theologico  Politicus w  to  true  infamy.  On  the  oth¬ 
er  hand,  at  times  he  leaves  the  consequences  out  of  sight, 
where  they  would  have  led  to  correct  views,  as  for  in¬ 
stance  in  his  as  unworthy  as  false  deliverances  about 
animals.  (<(  Eth.,w  pars  IV.,  appendices,  cap.  26,  ete  jusdem 
partis,  prop.  37,  <(  Scholion. ®)  He  speaks  here,  as  a  Jew 
knows  how,  according  to  the  first  and  ninth  chapters  of 
Genesis,  so  that  we,  who  are  accustomed  to  purer  and 
worthier  doctrines,  are  overpowered  by  the  fcetor  judai- 
cus.  Dogs  he  seems  not  to  have  known  at  all.  To  the 
monstrous  proposition  with  which  the  twenty-sixth  chap¬ 
ter  referred  to  opens,  proeter  homines  nihil  singulare  in  na - 
tura  novimus ,  cujus  inente  gaudere  et  quod  nobis  amicitia , 
aut  aliquo  consuetudinis  genere  jungere  possumus ,  the  best 
answer  is  given  by  a  Spanish  literateur  of  our  day  (<(  Lar- 
ra,w  pseudonym  (<  Figaro w  in  <(  Doncel, *  c.  33),  el  que  no 
hh  tenido  un  perro ,  no  sabe  lo  que  es  queerer  y  ser  querido  (He 
who  has  never  kept  a  dog  does  not  know  what  it  is  to 
love  and  beloved).  The  cruelties  which,  according  to  Cole- 
rus,  Spinoza  for  his  amusement  and  amid  hearty  laugh¬ 
ter  was  accustomed  to  practice  on  spiders  and  flies,  co¬ 
incide  only  too  well  with  the  propositions  here  attacked, 
as  also  with  the  chapters  of  Genesis  referred  to.  Not¬ 
withstanding  all  this,  Spinoza’s  <(  Ethica  ®  is  without  doubt 
a  mixture  of  false  and  true,  of  the  admirable  and  the 
bad.  Toward  the  end,  in  the  second  half  of  the  last 
part,  we  see  him  in  vain  endeavoring  to  make  himself 
clear  to  himself.  He  cannot  do  it,  and  therefore  noth¬ 
ing  remains  for  him  but  to  become  mystical,  as  happens 
here.  But  in  order  not  to  be  unjust  to  this  certainly 
great  mind  we  must  consider  that  he  had  too  little  be¬ 
fore  him,  hardly  more  than  Descartes,  Malebranche, 
Hobbes,  and  Giordano  Bruno.  The  basal  philosophical 
conceptions  were  as  yet  insufficiently  worked  out,  the 
problems  inadequately  ventilated. 

Leibnitz  started  similarly  from  the  conception  of  sub¬ 
stance  as  a  given  thing,  but  kept  chiefly  before  him  the 
fact  that  it  must  be  indestructible.  For  this  purpose  it 
must  be  simple  since  everything  extended  is  divisible, 
and  hence  destructible;  it  was,  consequently,  without  ex¬ 
tension,  and  therefore  immaterial.  There  remains  then 


174 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


no  other  predicates  for  his  substance  than  the  spiritual 
ones  of  perception,  thought,  and  desire.  He  assumed  a 
number  of  such  simple,  spiritual  substances,  which,  al¬ 
though  they  are  themselves  unextended,  lie  at  the  foun¬ 
dation  of  the  phenomenon  of  extension;  hence  he  defines 
them  as  formal  atoms  and  simple  substances,  and  bestows 
upon  them  the  name  monads.  These,  therefore,  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  the  phenomenon  of  the  corporeal  world, 
which  is,  accordingly,  a  mere  appearance  without  proper 
and  immediate  reality,  such  merely  accruing  to  the 
monads,  that  remain  within  and  behind  it.  The  phenom¬ 
enon  of  the  corporeal  world  is,  notwithstanding,  on  the 
other  side,  in  the  perception  of  the  monads  ( i.  e. ,  those 
that  really  perceive,  which  are  very  few,  most  of  them 
continuously  sleeping)  brought  about  by  virtue  of  the 
pre-established  harmony,  which  the  central  monad  pro¬ 
duces  entirely  alone  and  at  its  own  cost.  We  here  get 
somewhat  into  the  dark.  But,  however  this  may  be,  the 
connection  between  the  mere  thoughts  of  these  substances 
and  the  really  and  in  itself  extended,  is  regulated  by  a 
pre-established  harmony  of  the  central  monad.  Here  one 
might  say  all  is  remainder.  Meanwhile,  in  order  to  deal 
justly  with  Leibnitz,  we  must  remind  the  reader  of  the 
way  of  regarding  matter,  which  Locke  and  Newton  had 
made  current,  whereby,  namely,  matter  exists  as  absolutely 
dead,  purely  passive,  and  will-less,  merely  endowed  with 
mechanical  forces,  and  only  subordinated  to  mathematical 
laws.  Now  Leibnitz  rejects  the  atoms  and  the  purely 
mechanical  physics  in  order  to  put  in  its  place  a  dynami¬ 
cal,  in  all  of  which  he  prepared  the  way  for  Kant.  ( See 
(<  Opera,®  edit.  Erdmann,  p.  694.)  He  recalls  in  the  first 
place  the  formas  substantiate  of  the  schoolmen,  and  attains 
accordingly  to  the  insight,  that  even  the  merely  mechan¬ 
ical  forces  of  matter,  besides  which,  at  that  time  scarcely 
any  others  were  known  or  admitted,  must  have  some¬ 
thing  spiritual  at  their  foundation.  But  he  did  not  know 
how  to  make  this  clear  to  himself  otherwise  than  by  the 
extremely  unhappy  fiction  that  matter  consisted  of  simple 
souls,  which  were  at  the  same  time  formal  atoms,  and 
which,  although  existing  for  the  most  part  in  a  state  of 
unconsciousness,  nevertheless  possessed  an  analogon  of  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


175 


perceptio  and  the  appetitus.  This  consequently  misled 
him,  so  that  he,  like  all  the  rest,  made  Knowledge  the 
foundation  and  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  everything  spiritual 
rather  than  Will,  the  priority  due  to  which  I  have  been 
the  first  to  vindicate,  everything  in  philosophy  being 
thereby  turned  round.  In  the  meantime  Leibnitz’s  en¬ 
deavor  to  base  spirit  and  matter  on  one  and  the  same 
principle  deserves  recognition.  One  might  even  find 
therein  a  presentiment  as  well  of  the  Kantian  as  of  my 
own  doctrines,  but  quas  velut  trans  nebulam  vidit .  For  his 
<(  Monadology  ®  is  based  on  the  idea  that  matter  is  noth¬ 
ing  in  itself,  but  merely  phenomenon,  and  that  therefore 
the  ultimate  ground  of  even  its  mechanical  action  must 
not  be  sought  in  the  purely  geometrical,  that  is  in  what 
belongs  to  the  phenomenon,  such  as  extension,  motion, 
figure,  etc. ,  and  hence  that  impenetrability  is  not  a  mere 
negative  quality,  but  the  manifestation  of  a  positive  force. 
The  opinion  of  Leibnitz  we  have  praised  is  expressed 
most  clearly  in  some  of  his  smaller  French  writings,  as 
the  Systime  nouveau  de  la  nature ,  etc.,  which  are  collected 
from  the  (<  Journal  des  Savans  ®  in  the  edition  of  Diitens, 
in  the  edition  of  Erdmann,  and  in  the  letters,  etc.,  (Erd¬ 
mann,  pp.  681-95.)  There  is  also  to  be  found  a  well- 
chosen  collection  of  cognate  passages  of  Leibnitz  on  pp. 
335-40  of  his  <(  Smaller  philosophical  writings,  translated 
by  Kohler  and  revised  by  Huth,”  Jena,  1740. 

But  we  see  throughout  this  whole  chain  of  strange 
dogmatic  theories  one  fiction  continually  being  brought 
to  the  support  of  another,  just  as  in  practical  life  one  lie 
makes  many  others  necessary.  At  the  bottom  of  it  lies 
Descartes’  division  of  all  existence  into  God  and  world, 
and  of  man  into  spirit  and  matter,  to  the  last  of  which 
everything  else  is  counted.  To  this  must  be  added  the 
error,  common  to  him  and  to  all  philosophers  who  have 
ever  yet  been,  of  placing  the  final  ground  of  our  being 
in  knowledge  rather  than  in  will,  in  other  words,  in  mak¬ 
ing  the  latter  the  secondary,  and  the  former  the  primary. 
These,  then,  were  the  original  errors  against  which  nature 
and  the  reality  of  things  protested  at  every  step,  and  to 
save  which,  the  spiritus  animates,  the  materiality  of  animals, 
the  occasional  causes,  the  seeing  all  things  in  God,  the 


176 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


pre-established  harmony,  the  monads,  optimism,  and  all 
the  rest  of  it,  had  to  be  invented.  With  me,  on  the 
contrary,  where  things  are  seized  by  the  right  end,  every¬ 
thing  fits  in  of  itself,  everything  appears  in  its  proper 
light,  no  fictions  are  required,  and  simplex  sigillum  veri. 

Kant  was  not  directty  touched  by  the  substance  prob¬ 
lem —  he  had  got  beyond  it.  With  him  the  conception 
of  substance  is  a  category,  that  is,  a  mere  form  of  thought 
a  priori.  By  this,  in  its  necessary  application  to  sensible 
perception,  nothing  is  known  as  it  is  in  itself ;  hence  the 
being  which  is  at  the  foundation  of  bodies  no  less  than 
of  souls  is  in  itself  one  and  the  same.  This  is  his  doc¬ 
trine.  It  paved  the  way  for  me  to  the  insight  that  each 
one’s  body  is  only  the  perception  of  his  will  arising  in 
his  brain,  a  relation  which,  extended  afterward  to  all 
bodies,  resulted  in  the  resolution  of  the  world  into  Will 
and  Presentment. 

The  conception  of  substance,  however,  which  Descartes, 
true  to  Aristotle,  had  constituted  the  leading  conception 
of  his  philosophy,  and  with  whose  definition,  accordingly 
(although  in  the  fashion  of  the  Eleatics),  Spinoza  also 
starts,  proclaims  itself,  when  subjected  to  more  rigorous 
and  honest  investigation,  as  a  higher  but  unjustified 
abstractum  of  the  conception  of  matter,  which,  by  the 
way,  also  includes  the  supposititious  child,  immaterial 
substance,  as  I  have  already  explained  in  my  (<  Criticisms 
of  the  Kantian  Philosophy,  *  pp.  550  seq.  of  the  2d  ed. 
(3d  ed.  528-31  seq.).  But  apart  from  this  the  conception 
of  substance  is  invalid  as  the  starting  point  of  philosophy, 
because  it  is  in  all  cases  an  objective  one.  Nothing 
objective  is,  for  us,  more  than  mediate;  the  subjective 
alone  is  the  immediate.  This  must  not  be  passed  over, 
therefore,  but  must  be  made  the  absolute  starting  point. 
Descartes  has  certainly  done  this;  indeed,  he  was  the 
first  who  recognized  it,  and  hence  with  him  a  new  epoch 
in  philosophy  opens.  But  he  does  it  merely  preliminarily 
at  the  first  starting  off,  after  which  he  at  once  assumes 
the  absolute  objective  reality  of  the  world  on  the  credit 
of  the  veracity  of  God,  and  from  this  time  forward  philos¬ 
ophizes  in  an  entirely  objective  manner.  In  this  he  is 
guilty,  in  addition,  of  a  noteworthy  circulus  vitiosus.  He 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


177 


demonstrates  the  objective  reality  of  the  objects  of  all 
our  perpetual  presentments  from  the  existence  of  God  as 
their  author,  whose  veracity  does  not  admit  of  his  de¬ 
ceiving  us.  But  the  existence  of  God  himself  he  demon¬ 
strates  from  the  innate  presentment  which  we  are  supposed 
to  have  of  him  as  the  all-perfect  being.  ^  II  commence 
par  douter  de  tout ,  et  finit  par  tout  croire ,®  says  one  of 
his  countrymen  of  him. 

It  was  Berkeley  who  first  showed  himself  in  true  ear¬ 
nest  with  the  subjective  starting  point,  and  who  irrefuta¬ 
bly  explained  the  indispensable  necessity  of  it.  He  is 
the  father  of  Idealism,  which  is  the  foundation  of  all  true 
philosophy,  and  which  has  since  then  at  least  been  uni¬ 
versally  retained  as  a  starting  point,  although  every  suc¬ 
cessive  philosopher  has  made  his  own  modifications  and 
variations  of  it.  Thus  even  Locke  started  from  the  sub¬ 
jective,  in  that  he  ascribed  a  great  part  of  the  qualities 
of  bodies  to  our  sense  impression.  It  is  to  be  observed, 
however,  that  his  reduction  of  all  qualitative  difference, 
as  secondary  qualities,  to  merely  quantitative,  to  wit,  to 
size,  figure,  position,  etc.,  as  the  sole  primary  or  objec¬ 
tive  qualities,  is  at  bottom  the  doctrine  of  Demokritos, 
who  similarly  reduced  all  qualities  to  the  figure,  compo¬ 
sition,  and  position  of  atoms;  as  may  be  clearly  seen 
from  Aristotle’s  <(  Metaphysics,®  book  i.,  chap.  4,  and  from 
Theophrastus’s  <(  De  Sensu,®  chap.  61-65.  Locke  was,  in 
so  far,  a  resuscitator  of  the  Demokritean  philosophy,  as 
Spinoza  was  that  of  the  Eleatics.  He  also  really  paved 
the  way  for  the  succeeding  French  materialism.  By  his 
preliminary  distinction  between  subjective  and  objective 
elements  in  perception,  he  led  directly  up  to  Kant,  who, 
following  his  direction  and  track  in  a  much  higher  sense, 
was  enabled  to  sunder  the  subjective  purely  from  the  ob¬ 
jective,  by  which  process  indeed  so  much  accrued  to  the 
subjective,  that  the  objective  only  remained  as  a  kind  of 
dark  point,  a  something  not  farther  recognizable  —  the 
thing  in  itself.  I  have  now  reduced  this  to  the  being 
which  we  discover  in  our  self-consciousness  as  Will,  and 
I  have  therefore  again  returned  to  the  subjective  source 
of  knowledge.  It  could  not  happen  otherwise,  for,  as 
already  said^  the  objective  is  never  more  than  the  sec- 


12 


178 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


ondary,  namely,  a  presentment.  Hence,  therefore,  we 
must  not  seek  the  innermost  kernel  of  our  being,  the 
thing  in  itself,  without  us,  but  within  us,  in  other  words, 
in  the  subjective  side,  as  the  only  immediate.  To  this 
must  be  added  that  with  the  objective  we  can  never  at¬ 
tain  to  a  point  of  rest,  to  an  ultimate  and  original  point, 
because  we  are  there  in  the  domain  of  presentments,  and 
these  are  altogether  and  essentially  subordinated  to,  and 
have  for  their  form,  the  law  of  causation  in  its  four 
aspects,  for  which  reason  every  object  falls  under  and 
presupposes  the  requirements  of  the  former.  For  in¬ 
stance,  an  assumed  objective  absolute  carries  with  it  the 
destructive  questions,  Whence  ?  and  Why  ?  before  which 
it  must  give  way  and  fall.  It  is  otherwise  when  we  sink 
ourselves  in  the  still,  albeit  obscure,  depths  of  the  sub¬ 
ject.  Here  we  are  certainly  threatened  with  the  danger 
of  falling  into  mysticism,  and  we  must  therefore  only 
draw  from  this  source  what  is  actually  true,  compassa- 
ble  by  each  and  all,  and  consequently  undeniable. 

The  <(  Dianoialogy , ®  which,  as  the  result  of  inves¬ 
tigations  since  Descartes,  was  current  until  Kant,  may  be 
found  en  rfcumtf  and  expounded  with  naive  clearness  in 
Muratori,  <(  Della  Fantasia,®  chaps.  1-4  and  13;  Locke 
there  appears  as  a  heretic.  The  whole  is  a  nest  of  errors, 
by  which  it  may  be  seen  how  very  differently  I  have 
conceived  and  presented  it,  after  having  had  Kant  and 
Cabanis  for  predecessors.  The  above  entire  Dianoialogy 
and  Psychology  is  based  on  the  false  Cartesian  dualism. 
Everything  must  now  in  the  whole  work,  per  fas  et  nefas, 
be  reduced  to  it,  including  many  correct  and  interesting 
facts  which  are  introduced.  The  whole  procedure  is  in¬ 
teresting  as  a  type. 


Section  13. 

SOME  FURTHER  OBSERVATIONS  ON  THE  KANTIAN  PHILOSOPHY. 

There  is  a  passage  in  Pope  which  would  be  very  suit¬ 
able  as  a  motto  for  a  critique  of  pure  reason.  It  was 
written  about  eighty  years  earlier,  and  says:  “Since  it  is 
reasonable  to  doubt  most  things,  we  should  most  of  all 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


179 


doubt  that  reason  of  ours  which  would  demonstrate  all 
things.  ® 

The  true  spirit  of  the  Kantian  philosophy,  its  leading 
idea  and  true  sense,  may  be  conceived  and  presented  in 
many  ways.  Such  various  modes  of  expressing  the 
matter  are  adapted,  according  to  the  variety  of  mind,  to 
open  out  to  this  one  or  that  the  true  understanding  of 
these  deep  and  therefore  difficult  doctrines.  The  follow¬ 
ing  is  one  more  attempt  of  this  nature,  in  which  I  seek 
to  infuse  my  clearness  into  Kant’s  depth. 

Mathematics  is  based  on  perceptions,  on  which  its  dem¬ 
onstrations  support  themselves;  but  because  these  per¬ 
ceptions  are  not  empirical,  but  are  a  priori,  its  doctrines 
are  apodeictic.  Philosophy,  on  the  contrary,  has,  as  the 
given  element  from  which  it  proceeds,  and  which  imparts 
to  its  demonstrations  necessity  (apodeicticity),  mere  con¬ 
cepts.  For  it  cannot  at  once  stand  on  the  footing  of 
simple  empirical  perception,  inasmuch  as  it  undertakes 
to  explain  the  universal,  not  the  particular,  of  things, 
its  object  being  to  lead  beyond  the  empirically  given. 
There  remains  nothing  for  it,  then,  but  universal  concepts, 
in  so  far  as  these  are  not  perceptual  or  purely  empirical. 
Such  concepts  must  then  furnish  the  foundation  of  its 
doctrines  and  demonstrations,  and  it  must  start  from 
them  as  from  something  present  and  given.  Philosophy 
is  accordingly  a  science  from  mere  concepts,  while  math¬ 
ematics  is  a  science  from  the  construction  (perceptual 
presentment )  of  its  concepts.  Strictly  speaking,  however, 
it  is  only  the  demonstrations  of  philosophy  which  pro¬ 
ceed  from  mere  concepts.  This  cannot,  like  the  mathe¬ 
matical,  proceed  from  a  perception,  because  such  would 
have  to  be  either  purely  a  priori  or  empirical;  but  the 
latter  gives  no  apodeicticity,  and  the  former  furnishes 
only  mathematics.  If  it  intends,  therefore,  to  support 
its  doctrines  by  any  sort  of  demonstration,  this  must 
consist  in  the  correct  logical  consequence  from  concepts 
at  its  foundation.  Things  had  gone  quite  smoothly  in  this 
direction  throughout  the  long  period  of  Scholasticism, 
and  even  in  the  new  epoch  founded  by  Descartes,  so 
that  we  see  Spinoza  and  Leibnitz  pursuing  this  method. 
At  last  it  occured  to  Locke  to  investigate  the  origin  of 


i8o 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


concepts,  the  result  he  arrived  at  being  that  all  universal 
concepts,  however  abstract  they  may  be,  are  derived  from 
experience,  that  is,  from  the  existent,  sensuously  per¬ 
ceivable,  empirically  real  world,  or  else  through  inward 
experience  such  as  the  empirical  self-observation  of  each 
offers,  in  short,  that  their  whole  content  is  derived 
from  these  two,  and  consequently  can  never  furnish 
more  than  what  outer  or  inner  experience  has  placed 
there.  From  the  foregoing  it  ought  in  strictness  to 
have  been  inferred  that  they  can  never  transcend 
experience,  that  is,  can  never  lead  to  the  goal;  but 
Locke  went,  with  the  principles  derived  from  experience, 
beyond  experience. 

In  elaborate  antithesis  to  his  predecessors,  and  by  way 
of  correction  of  the  Lockean  doctrines,  Kant  showed  that 
there  are  indeed  some  conceptions  which  make  an  excep¬ 
tion  to  the  above  rule,  that  is,  which  do  not  spring  from 
experience.  But  that  these  are  at  the  same  time  partly 
derived  from  the  pure,  that  is  a  priori  given  intuition 
of  space  and  time,  and  partly  constitute  the  special  func¬ 
tions  of  our  understanding  itself,  for  the  sake  of  their 
use  in  the  experience  which  regulates  itself  according  to 
them.  Their  validity  only  extends  accordingly  to  possible 
experience  of  which  sense  is  always  the  medium,  inasmuch 
as  they  are  only  determined  to  generate  this  in  us,  together 
with  its  regular  course;  in  other  words  they,  themselves 
contentless,  receive  all  material  and  content  solely  from 
sensibility,  in  order  thereby  to  produce  experience  —  but 
apart  therefrom  have  neither  content  nor  significance, 
inasmuch  as  they  are  only  valid  under  the  pre-supposi¬ 
tion  of  perception  resting  on  sense-feeling,  and  refer 
essentially  to  this.  It  follows  from  the  above  that  they 
cannot  supply  us  with  clues  to  lead  us  beyond  all  possi¬ 
bility  of  experience,  and  from  this  again  that  meta¬ 
physics  as  the  science  of  that  which  lies  beyond  nature, 
that  is,  beyond  the  possibility  of  experience,  is  impossible. 

As  now  the  one  element  of  experience,  namely,  the 
universal,  formal,  and  regulative,  is  knowable  a  priori, 
and  therefore  rests  on  the  essential  and  regulative  func¬ 
tions  of  our  own  intellect,  while  the  other,  namely,  the 
particular,  material,  and  accidental,  arises  from  sense- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


i  S  i 


feeling,  it  follows  that  both  are  of  subjective  origin. 
Hence  it  also  follows  that  experience,  in  its  totality,  to¬ 
gether  with  the  world  presented  therein,  is  a  mere 
phenomenon,  that  is,  something  which,  directly  and  im¬ 
mediately,  is  only  existent  for  the  subject  knowing  it. 
But  this  phenomenon,  nevertheless,  points  to  a  thing  in 
itself  lying  at  its  foundation,  but  which,  as  such,  is  ab¬ 
solutely  unknowable.  These  are  the  negative  results  of 
the  Kantian  philosophy. 

I  must  here  call  attention  to  the  fact,  that  Kant  speaks 
as  though  we  were  only  perceiving  subjects,  and  had  no- 
datum  outside  the  presentment,  while  we  certainly  pos¬ 
sess  another  in  the  Will  within  us,  which  is  toto  genere 
distinct  from  the  former.  It  is  true  he  also  took  this 
into  consideration,  yet  not  in  the  theoretical,  but  only 
in  the  practical  philosophy,  from  which  with  him  it  is 
quite  separated,  in  other  words,  simply  and  solely  in 
order  to  establish  the  fact  of  the  pure  and  moral  signifi¬ 
cance  of  our  action,  and  thereupon  to  found  a  moral 
faith,  to  counterbalance  our  theoretical  ignorance  and  the 
impossibility  of  all  theology  which  follows  therefrom. 

Kant’s  philosophy  in  contradistinction,  and  indeed  in 
antithesis  to  all  others,  is  also  designated  as  transcen¬ 
dental  philosophy,  or  more  accurately,  transcendental 
idealism.  The  expression  <(  transcendent ®  is  not  of 
mathematical,  but  of  philosophical  origin,  since  it  was 
familiar  to  the  scholastics.  It  was  first  introduced  into 
mathematics  by  Leibnitz,  in  order  to  designate  qaod 
algebrae  vires  trajiscendit,  that  is,  all  operations,  which 
common  arithmetic  and  algebra  do  not  suffice  to  com¬ 
plete,  as,  for  instance,  to  find  the  logarithm  of  a  num¬ 
ber,  or  vice  versd ,  or  to  find  the  trigonometric  functions 
of  an  arc,  purely  arithmetically,  or  vice  versd ,  and  gen¬ 
erally  for  all  problems  which  are  only  to  be  solved  by  a 
calculus  carried  out  to  infinity.  But  the  schoolmen  desig¬ 
nate  as  transcendent,  such  concepts  as  were  more  uni¬ 
versal  than  the  ten  categories  of  Aristotle,  and  even 
Spinoza  uses  the  word  in  this  sense.  Giordano  Bruno 
((<  De  la  Causa,®  etc.,  dial,  iv.),  calls  those  predicates 
transcendent  which  are  more  universal  than  the  distinc¬ 
tion  of  corporeal  and  incorporeal  substance  pertaining  to 


182 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


substance  generally.  They  concern,  according  to  him, 
those  common  roots  in  which  the  corporeal  is  one  with 
the  incorporeal,  and  which  is  the  true  original  substance ; 
he  even  sees  in  this  a  proof  that  such  must  exist.  Now 
Kant  understands  by  transcendental,  in  the  first  place, 
the  recognition  of  the  a  priori ,  and  therefore  the  merely 
formal  in  our  knowledge  as  such,  i. e. ,  the  insight  that 
such  knowledge  is  independent  of  experience;  indeed 
that  this  prescribes  the  unalterable  rule,  according  to 
which  it  must  proceed — such  insight  being  at  the  same 
time  bound  up  with  the  understanding  why  such  knowl¬ 
edge  is  and  accomplishes  this,  to  wit,  because  it  con¬ 
stitutes  the  form  of  our  intellect,  and  is,  in  consequence, 
of  subjective  origin.  Only  Criticism  of  Pure  Reason  is, 
accordingly,  transcendental.  In  opposition  to  this  he 
calls  transcendent  the  use,  or  rather  the  misuse,  of  the 
above  purely  formal  element  in  our  knowledge  outside 
the  possibility  of  experience;  which  he  also  terms  hyper¬ 
physical.  transcendental,  therefore,  means  in  short, 
"before  all  experience,”  transcendent,  "beyond  all  ex¬ 
perience.”  Kant  it  will  be  seen  only  admits  Metaphysic 
as  Transcendental  Philosophy,  that  is,  as  the  doctrine  of 
the  form  contained  in  our  knowing  consciousness  as  such, 
and  of  the  limitation  thereby  disclosed,  by  virtue  of 
which  the  knowledge  of  things  in  themselves  is  impossi¬ 
ble  for  us,  since  experience  can  furnish  nothing  but 
mere  phenomena.  The  word  "metaphysical,”  is  how¬ 
ever,  not  synonymous  with  "  transcendental.  ”  Everything 
that  is  a  priori  certain,  but  which  concerns  experience, 
is  termed  by  him  metaphysical,  whereas  the  doctrine 
that  it  is  only  on  account  of  its  subjective  origin,  and 
as  purely  formal,  that  it  is  a  priori  certain,  is  alone 
called  transcendental.  Transcendental  is  the  philosophy 
which  brings  to  one’s  consciousness  that  the  primary  and 
most  essential  laws  of  this  world  which  is  presented  to 
us  have  their  root  in  our  brain,  and  for  this  reason  can 
be  known  a  priori.  It  is  called  transcendental,  because 
it  passes  beyond  the  whole  given  phantasmagoria  to  its 
origin.  Hence,  as  already  said,  the  criticism  of  pure  rea¬ 
son,  and  especially  the  Critical  (i. e. ,  Kantian),  philosophy, 
is  alone  transcendental;  metaphysical,  on  the  other  hand, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


183 


are  the  <( foundations  of  natural  science,”  also  those  of 
the  <(  doctrine  of  Virtue,”  etc. 

The  conception  of  a  transcendental  philosophy,  however, 
may  be  taken  in  a  deeper  sense,  if  one  undertakes  to  con¬ 
centrate  therein  the  innermost  spirit  of  the  Kantian  philos¬ 
ophy,  and  somewhat  in  the  following  manner.  That  the 
whole  world  is  only  given  us,  in  a  secondary  manner,  as 
presentment  or  image  in  our  head,  as  brain  phenomenon, 
while  our  own  Will  is  given  immediately  in  self-conscious¬ 
ness,  and  hence  a  separation,  or  indeed  an  opposition  exists 
between  our  own  existence  and  that  of  the  world  —  all  this 
is  a  mere  consequence  of  our  individual  and  mere  animal 
existence,  with  the  abolition  of  which  it  falls  away.  But 
until  then  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  get  rid  in  thought  of 
that  fundamental  and  original  form  of  our  consciousness, 
which  is  implied  in  the  separation  of  subject  and  object, 
since  all  thinking  and  presenting  presupposes  it.  Hence 
we  count  it  for  the  all-essential  and  fundamental  nature 
of  the  world,  while  it  is  in  reality  only  the  form  of  our 
animal  consciousness  and  the  phenomena  occasioned  by 
the  same.  But  from  this  arise  all  those  questions,  as  to 
beginning,  end,  boundary,  and  origin  of  the  world,  our 
own  continuance  after  death,  etc.  They  rest  accordingly 
on  a  false  assumption,  which  attributes  to  the  thing-in- 
itself  what  are  only  presentments  occasioned  by  an  animal, 
cerebral  consciousness,  and  assumes  this  to  be  the  origi¬ 
nal  and  ultimate  nature  of  the  world.  Such  is  the  sense 
of  the  Kantian  expression  — <(  all  such  questions  are  tran¬ 
scendent.  ”  They  are,  indeed,  not  merely  subjectively,  but 
in  and  for  themselves,  that  is  objectively,  susceptible  of 
no  answer.  For  they  are  problems  which  wholly  disappear 
with  the  abolition  of  our  cerebral  consciousness  and  the 
opposition  based  upon  it,  and  are,  nevertheless,  stated  as 
though  they  were  independent  of  it.  For  example,  he 
who  asks  whether  he  continues  after  his  death,  sets  aside, 
in  hypothesis  his  animal  brain-consciousness,  and  asks,  not¬ 
withstanding,  as  to  the  existence  of  something  which  pre¬ 
supposes  this,  inasmuch  as  it  rests  on  its  form,  namely, 
subject  and  object,  space  and  time  —  to  wit,  as  to  his 
individual  continuance.  Now  philosophy,  which  brings  all 
these  conditions  and  limitations,  as  such,  to  distinct  con- 


184 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


sciousness,  is  transcendental,  and,  in  so  far  as  it 

VINDICATES  FOR  THE  SUBJECT,  THE  UNIVERSAL  GROUND  DE¬ 
TERMINATIONS  OF  THE  OBJECTIVE  WORLD,  IT  IS  TRANSCEN¬ 
DENTAL  Idealism.  It  will  gradually  be  seen  that  the 
problems  of  Metaphysics  are  only  in  so  far  insoluble,  as 
a  contradiction  is  contained  in  the  questions  themselves. 

Transcendental  Idealism,  in  the  meantime,  does  not 
dispute  the  empirical  reality  of  the  existing  world,  but 
says  only  that  it  is  not  unconditioned,  since  it  has  our 
brain-function,  from  which  the  forms  of  perception,  time, 
space,  and  causality  arise,  for  its  condition,  and  that 
therefore  this  empirical  reality  itself  is  only  the  reality 
of  an  appearance.  If  a  multitude  of  existences  manifest 
themselves  therein,  of  which  one  is  always  passing  away 
and  another  is  arising,  and  we  know,  that  only  by  means 
of  the  percept-form  of  space,  plurality,  and  only  by 
means  of  that  of  time,  destruction  and  origination,  is  pos¬ 
sible,  we  recognize  that  such  a  process  has  no  absolute 
reality,  i.  e .,  that  it  does  not  belong  to  the  beings- 
in-themselves,  which  manifest  themselves  in  that  appear¬ 
ance.  If  we  could  withdraw  these  forms  of  knowledge, 
as  glass  from  the  kaleidoscope,  we  should  have,  to  our 
astonishment,  a  single  and  enduring  world  before  us,  un- 
transitory,  unalterable,  and  amid  all  apparent  change, 
perhaps  even  right  down  to  its  individual  determination, 
identical.  In  accordance  with  this  opinion,  the  following 
three  propositions  may  be  stated:  — 

(1.)  The  sole  form  of  reality  is  the  actual;  in  it  alone 
the  real  is  immediately  met  with  and  contained  in  its 
completeness  and  fullness. 

(2.)  The  true  Real  is  independent  of  time  and  there¬ 
fore,  in  every  point  of  time,  one  and  the  same. 

(3.)  Time  is  the  percept-form  of  our  intellect,  and  hence 
foreign  to  the  things-in-themselves. 

These  three  propositions  are  at  bottom  identical.  He 
who  clearly  sees  their  identity,  no  less  than  their  truth, 
has  made  great  progress  in  philosophy,  inasmuch  as  he 
has  grasped  the  spirit  of  transcendental  Idealism. 

How  rich  indeed  in  consequences  is  Kant’s  doctrine  of 
the  ideality  of  space  and  time,  dryly  and  tastelessly  as 
he  has  expounded  it.  On  the  contrary,  nothing  results 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY  185 

from  the  pompous,  pretentious  and  purposely  incompre¬ 
hensible  jargon  of  the  three  notorious  sophists,  who  have 
drawn  off  from  Kant  the  attention  of  a  public  that  was 
unworthy  of  him.  Before  Kant,  it  may  be  said,  we  were 
in  time,  now  time  is  in  us.  In  the  first  case  time  is 
Real,  and  we,  like  everything  else  that  falls  within  it, 
are  consumed  by  it.  In  the  second  case,  time  is  Ideal, 
but  lies  in  us.  The  question  respecting  the  future 
after  death  thus  at  once  collapses.  For  if  I  am  not, 
time  is  no  more.  It  is  only  a  deceptive  illusion  which 
shows  me  a  time  proceeding  without  me,  after  my  death. 
All  three  divisions  of  time,  past,  present  and  future,  are 
similarly  my  product,  belong  to  me  and  not  I  to  one 
any  more  than  to  another  of  them.  Again,  another  con¬ 
sequence  which  may  be  drawn  from  the  proposition  that 
time  does  not  belong  to  the  essence  of  the  things-in- 
themselves,  would  be  this,  that  in  one  sense  the  past  is 
not  past,  but  that  everything  which  has  ever  really,  ever 
truly  been,  must  still  be,  since  time  only  resembles  a 
stage-waterfall,  which  seems  to  stream  down,  but,  being 
simply  a  wheel,  never  moves  from  its  place.  I  have  al¬ 
ready  in  my  chief  work  long  ago  compared,  in  a  manner 
analogous  to  this,  space  to  a  glass  cut  into  facets,  which 
shows  us  that  which  exists  singly  in  countless  reproduc¬ 
tion.  If  undeterred  by  the  danger  of  becoming  vision¬ 
ary,  we  plunge  still  deeper  into  the  matter,  it  might 
appear  to  us  as  though,  by  a  very  vivid  presentation  of 
our  own  remote  past,  we  received  an  immediate  confir¬ 
mation  of  the  fact,  that  time  does  not  touch  the  true 
being  of  things,  but  is  only  interpolated  between  their 
being  and  us  as  a  mere  medium  of  perception,  after  the 
removal  of  which  all  would  again  be  there;  as  also,  on 
the  other  hand,  our  true  and  living  faculty  of  memory, 
in  which  this  long  past  maintains  an  unwithered  exist¬ 
ence,  bears  witness  to  something  within  us  that  does  not 
alter,  and  consequently,  which  is  not  within  the  domain 
of  time. 

The  main  tendency  of  the  Kantian  philsophy  is  to  place 
before  us  the  complete  diversity  of  the  Ideal  and  Real 
after  Locke  had  already  broken  ground.  In  the  first 
place  one  can  say,  the  Ideal  is  the  perceptual  figure  dis- 


1 86 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


playing  itself  spacially,  with  all  the  qualities  perceivable 
in  it,'  while  the  Real  is  the  thing  by,  in,  and  for  itself, 
independent  of  its  being  presented  in  the  head  of  another 
or  its  own.  But  the  boundary  between  them  is  difficult 
to  be  drawn,  and  yet  it  is  precisely  this  upon  which  the 
question  turns.  Locke  had  shown  that  everything  in  the 
former  which  is  figure,  color,  sound,  smoothness,  rough¬ 
ness,  hardness,  softness,  cold,  heat,  etc.  (secondary  qual¬ 
ities),  are  merely  Ideal,  and  therefore  do  not  belong  to 
the  thing  in  itself,  inasmuch  as  the  being  and  nature  of 
the  thing  is  not  given  therein,  but  only  its  action,  and 
indeed  a  very  one-sided  definite  action,  an  action,  namely 
on  the  quite  specifically  determined  receptivity  of  our 
five  sense-organs,  by  virtue  of  which,  for  instance,  sound 
does  not  act  on  the  eye,  nor  light  on  the  ear.  The  ac¬ 
tion  of  bodies  on  the  organs  of  sense  consists  in  that  it 
sets  the  latter  in  a  state  of  activity  peculiar  to  them,  al¬ 
most  in  the  same  way  as  when  I  pull  a  thread  which  sets 
a  mechanism  in  play.  As  the  Real,  which  belong  to  the 
thing  in  itself,  Locke  left  standing,  extension,  form,  im¬ 
penetrability,  motion,  or  rest,  and  number,  which  he 
therefore  termed  primary  qualities.  Now  Kant  demon¬ 
strated,  subsequently,  with  infinitely  superior  insight, 
that  even  these  qualities  do  not  belong  to  the  objective 
nature  of  the  things  or  to  the  things  in  themselves,  and 
therefore  cannot  be  absolutely  Real,  since  they  are  con¬ 
ditioned  by  space,  time  and  causality,  and  that  these  in 
their  turn,  according  to  their  whole  order  and  construc¬ 
tion,  are  given  us  before  all  experience,  and  are  exactly 
known ;  and  hence  that  they  most  reside  in  us  preformed, 
as  much  as  the  specific  kind  of  the  receptivity  and  ac¬ 
tivity  of  each  of  our  senses.  In  accordance  with  this  I 
have  said  that  these  forms  are  the  part  taken  by  the 
brain  in  perception  as  the  specific  sense-feelings  are  of 
the  respective  sense-organs.*  Even  according  to  Kant 
the  purely  objective,  the  nature  of  things  which  is  inde¬ 
pendent  of  our  presentment  and  its  apparatus,  which  he 

*  As  it  is  our  eye  which  produces  green,  red,  and  blue,  so  it  is  our 
brain  which  produces  time,  space,  and  causality  (whose  objectivized  ab- 
stractum  is  matter).  My  perception  of  a  body  in  space  is  the  product 
of  my  sense  and  brain  function  with  j. 


THE  HISTORY  OP  PHILOSOPHY 


187 


calls  the  thing-in-itself,  that  is,  the  properly  Real  in  con¬ 
tradistinction  to  the  Ideal,  is  something  totally  distinct 
from  the  figure  which  presents  itself  to  us  in  perception 
and  to  which,  inasmuch  as  it  is  independent  of  space  and 
time,  properly  speaking,  neither  extension  nor  duration  is 
to  be  attributed,  although  it  imparts  the  power  of  exist¬ 
ence  to  all  that  possesses  extension  and  duration.  Spi¬ 
noza  has  comprehended  the  subject  in  its  general  aspect, 
as  may  be  seen  from  <(Eth.,®  p.  ii. ,  prop.  16,  with  the 
2d  coroll,  also  prop.  18,  Schol. 

The  Lockean  Real,  in  opposition  to  the  Ideal,  is  at 
bottom  matter,  stripped  indeed  of  all  its  qualities,  which 
he  casts  on  one  side  as  secondary,  that  is  as  conditioned 
by  our  sense-organs,  for  it  is,  per  se,  an  extended,  etc., 
existent,  of  which  the  presentment  in  us  is  the  mere  re¬ 
flex  or  copy.  As  to  this,  I  may  recall  that  I  (in  the 
“Fourfold  Root,®  2d  ed.,  p.  77;  3d  ed.,  p.  82,  and  at 
less  length  in  <(  The  World  as  Will,®  etc.,  Presentment,  2d 
ed.,  vol.  i.,  p.  9,  and  vol.  ii,  p.  48;  3d  ed.,  vol.  i.,  p.  10;  vol.  ii., 
p.  52 )  have  explained  that  the  nature  of  matter  consists  sim¬ 
ply  in  its  action,  that  matter  is  nothing  but  causality,  and 
that  conceived  as  such  every  special  quality,  that  is,  every 
specific  kind  of  action,  is  abstracted  from  it,  so  that  it  re¬ 
mains  action  or  pure  causality,  deprived  of  all  the  other  defi¬ 
nitions,  causality  in  abstracto;  to  which  place,  for  a  more 
thorough  understanding  of  the  matter,  I  ask  the  reader  to  re¬ 
fer.  But  Kant  had  already  taught,  although  it  was  I  who 
gave  the  first  correct  demonstration  of  it,  that  all  caus¬ 
ality  is  only  a  form  of  our  understanding,  and  therefore, 
only  exists  for  the  understanding  and  in  the  understand¬ 
ing.  We  see  then  the  supposed  Real  of  Locke,  matter, 
in  this  way  retreats  entirely  into  the  Ideal,  and  therewith 
into  the  subject,  that  is,  exists  only  in  the  presentment 
and  for  the  presentment.  Kant,  by  his  presentment,  cer¬ 
tainly  deprived  the  Real,  or  thing-in-itself,  of  its  material¬ 
ity,  but  with  him  it  remained  a  completely  unknown  /. 
I  have  at  last  demonstrated  the  true  Real,  or  the 
thing-in-itself,  which  alone  has  a  real  existence  independ¬ 
ent  of  the  presentment  and  its  forms,  to  be  the  Will  in 
us,  which  had  been  hitherto  inconsiderately  reckoned  to 
the  Ideal.  It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  Locke,  Kant, 


1 88 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


and  I  stand  in  close  connection,  inasmuch  as  we  repre¬ 
sent  in  the  space  of  nearly  two  hundred  years,  the 
gradual  development  of  a  coherent,  unified,  process  of 
thought.  David  Hume  may  be  considered  as  a  connect¬ 
ing  link  in  this  chain,  although  properly  speaking,  only 
so  far  as  the  law  of  causality  is  concerned.  In  respect 
of  his  influence  I  have  to  complete  the  above  exposition 
with  the  following. 

Locke,  no  less  than  Condillac,  and  the  disciples  who 
trod  in  his  footsteps,  have  elaborated  the  fact  that  the 
feeling  which  enters  into  an  organ  of  sense  requires  a 
cause  of  the  same  outside  of  our  body,  and  that  the  differ¬ 
ences  of  such  action  (sense-impression)  also  presuppose 
differences  in  the  cause,  whatever  these  may  be ;  whence 
the  above  indicated  distinction  between  primary  and 
secondary  qualities  proceeds.  With  this  they  end,  and  an 
objective  world  in  space  stands  ready  made  for  them, 
composed  of  things  in  themselves,  but  which  are  colorless, 
odorless,  soundless,  neither  warm  nor  cold,  etc.,  and 
nevertheless,  extended,  figured,  impenetrable,  movable 
and  numerical.  But  the  axiom  itself,  by  virtue  of  which 
the  transition  from  the  inner  to  the  outer,  and  accordingly 
the  whole  derivation  and  installation  of  the  things-in- 
themselves  has  taken  place,  namely,  the  law  of  causality, 
they,  like  all  earlier  philosophers,  have  assumed  to  be  self- 
evident,  and  requiring  no  proof  of  its  validity.  Upon  this 
point  Hume  directed  his  sceptical  attack,  inasmuch  as  he 
placed  the  validity  of  this  law  in  doubt.  For  experience, 
from  which,  according  to  this  philosophy,  all  our  cogni¬ 
tions  are  derived,  can  never  supply  us  with  the  causal 
connection  itself,  but  only  with  the  mere  succession  of 
states  in  time,  in  other  words,  never  with  a  consequence, 
but  only  with  a  mere  sequence,  which,  as  such,  must 
always  be  accidental,  and  never  necessary.  This  argu¬ 
ment,  so  antagonistic  to  common  sense,  yet  not  easily  to  be 
refuted,  occasioned  Kant  to  investigate  the  true  origin  of 
causality,  which  he  found  to  lie  in  the  essential  and  innate 
form  of  our  understanding  itself,  that  is,  in  the  subject 
and  not  in  the  object,  since  it  was  not  first  brought  to  us 
from  without.  But  by  this  the  whole  objective  world  of 
Locke  and  Condillac  was  drawn  back  into  the  subject, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


189 


since  Kant  had  shown  the  clue  to  it  to  be  of  subjective 
origin.  For  the  rule  is  now  found  to  be  just  as  subjec¬ 
tive  as  the  sense-impression,  according  to  which  it  is  to 
be  conceived  as  the  effect  of  a  cause,  which  cause  it  alone 
is,  that  is,  perceived  as  the  objective  world.  For  the 
subject  merely  assumes  an  object  without  itself  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  its  intellect,  which 
to  every  change  presupposes  a  cause,  and  therefore  only 
projects  it,  as  it  were,  out  of  itself  in  a  space  prepared  for 
this  purpose,  this  in  its  turn  being  a  product  of  its  own 
original  construction,  as  well  as  of  the  specific  impression 
on  the  sense-organs,  at  the  instance  of  which  the  whole 
procedure  takes  place.  The  above  Lockean  objective  world 
of  things-of-themselves,  had  therefore  been  changed  by 
Kant  into  a  world  of  mere  phenomena  in  our  knowledge- 
apparatus,  and  this  the  more  completely,  since  the  space 
in  which  they  present  themselves,  as  also  the  time  in 
which  they  pass,  was  proved  by  him  to  be  undeniably  of 
subjective  origin. 

But  with  all  this,  Kant,  no  less  than  Locke,  allowed  the 
thing-in-itself  to  exist,  i.  e .,  admits  something  to  exist 
independent  of  our  presentments,  which  only  furnish  us 
with  phenomena,  and  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
these  phenomena.  Here,  then,  lay  the  Achilles’s  heel  of 
his  philosophy,  which  had,  by  the  demonstration  of  its 
inconsequence,  to  forfeit  the  recognition  it  had  already 
obtained  as  being  of  unconditioned  validity  and  truth; 
but  in  the  last  resort  it  was,  nevertheless,  unjustly 
treated  in  this  respect.  For  certainly  the  assumption 
of  a  thing  in  itself  behind  the  phenomena,  of  a  real 
kernel  under  so  many  shells,  is  in  no  wise  untrue.  The 
denial  of  it  would  be  indeed  absurd.  It  is  only  the  way 
in  which  Kant  introduced  this  thing-in-itself,  and  sought 
to  unite  it  with  his  principles,  which  was  faulty;  at 
bottom  it  was  only  his  exposition  (this  word  taken  in 
its  most  comprehensive  sense)  of  the  matter,  and  not  the 
matter  itself,  which  succumbed  to  his  adversaries.  In 
this  sense  it  might  be  maintained  that  the  argumenta¬ 
tion  made  valid  against  him  was,  strictly  speaking,  ad¬ 
dressed  only  ad  hominem ,  not  ad  rem.  Assuredly  the  In¬ 
dian  proverb  finds  an  application  here:  (<  No  lotus  without 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


190 

a  thorn.”  Kant  was  guided  by  the  deeply-felt  truth  that 
behind  every  phenomenon  a  being  in  itself  lies,  from  which 
it  receives  its  subsistence;  in  other  words,  that  behind 
the  presentment  something  presented  lies.  But  he  un¬ 
dertook  to  deduce  this  from  a  given  presentment  itself  by 
the  addition  of  certain  laws  known  to  us  a  priori ,  and 
which,  because  they  are  a  priori ,  cannot  be  deduced  from 
something  independent  and  distinct  from  the  phenome¬ 
non  or  presentment ;  and  hence  for  this  purpose  one  must 
strike  out  another  way.  The  inconsistencies  in  which 
Kant  involved  himself  by  the  fallacious  path  he  had  taken 
in  this  respect,  were  demonstrated  to  him  by  G.  E. 
Schultze,  who,  in  a  clumsy  and  diffuse  manner,  ex¬ 
pounded  the  matter,  at  first  anonymously  in  <(Aenesi- 
demus  ”  (especially  pp.  374-81),  and  subsequently  in  his 
<(  Critique  of  Theoretical  Philosophy”  (vol.  ii.,  p.  205), 
against  which  Reinhold  took  up  Kant’s  vindication, 
although  without  any  special  result ;  so  that  haec  potuisse 
did ,  et  non  potuisse  refelli  has  its  application. 

I  will  here  clearly  set  forth  once  for  all  in  my  way 
the  truly  essential  of  the  matter,  that  which  lies  at  the 
root  of  the  whole  controversy  independently  of  Schultze ’s 
way  of  conceiving  it.  A  strict  deduction  of  the  thing- 
in-itself  Kant  has  never  given,  but  he  has  inherited  it 
from  his  predecessors,  especially  Locke,  and  has  retained 
it  as  something,  the  existence  of  which  was  not  to  be 
doubted,  since  it  was  strictly  self-evident;  indeed,  he  was 
bound  to  do  this  to  a  certain  extent.  According  to  Kant’s 
discoveries  our  empirical  knowledge  contains  an  element 
which  is  demonstrably  of  subjective  origin,  and  another 
element  of  which  this  is  not  the  case;  the  latter  remains 
therefore  objective,  there  being  no  ground  for  holding 
it  to  be  subjective.  Kant’s  transcendental  Idealism  denies, 
accordingly,  the  objective  nature  of  things  or  their  reality 
as  independent  of  our  perception,  in  so  far  as  the  a  priori 
in  our  knowledge  extends,  but  not  farther,  because  the 
ground  for  the  denial  does  not  reach  farther.  What  lies 
outside  he  allows  to  remain,  that  is,  all  such  qualities  of 
things  as  cannot  be  constructed  a  priori.  For  the  whole 
nature  of  the  given  phenomena,  namely,  of  the  corporeal 
world  is  in  no  wise  determinable  by  us  a  priori ,  but  is 


I 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY  191 

merely  the  universal  form  of  its  phenomenon,  and  this 
may  be  reduced  to  space,  time,  and  causality,  together 
with  the  totality  of  the  laws  of  these  three  forms.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  indeterminate  residuum  present 
throughout  all  these  a  priori  existent  forms,  in  other 
words,  that  which  pertains  to  chance,  is  precisely  the 
manifestation  of  the  thing-in-itself.  Now  the  empirical 
content  of  the  phenomena,  i.  e .,  every  closer  determina¬ 
tion  of  the  same,  every  physical  quality  appearing  in 
them,  cannot  be  known  otherwise  than  as  a  posteriori. 
These  empirical  qualities  ( or  rather  their  common  source) 
remain  therefore  the  thing-in-itself,  as  the  manifestation 
of  its  special  nature  through  the  medium  of  the  above 
a  priori  forms.  This  a  posteriori ,  which  in  every  phe¬ 
nomenon  appears,  as  it  were,  clothed  in  the  a  priori,  but 
yet  imparting  to  every  being  its  special  and  individual 
character,  is  accordingly  the  matter  of  the  phenomenal 
world  in  contradistinction  to  its  form.  Now,  since  this 
matter  is  in  no  way  deducible  from  the  forms  of  the 
phenomenon  inherent  in  the  subject,  so  carefully  sought 
out  by  Kant  and  so  certainly  demonstrated  by  the  sign 
of  a  priority  but  rather  remains  after  the  abstraction 
of  everything  flowing  from  these,  thereby  proving  itself 
a  second  perfectly  distinct  element  of  the  empirical  phe¬ 
nomenon,  and  a  foreign  addition  to  these  forms;  and  at 
the  same  time,  since  it  proceeds  in  no  wise  from  the 
caprice  of  the  knowing  subject,  but  rather  stands  in  op¬ 
position  thereto  —  for  these  reasons,  Kant  did  not  hesitate 
to  leave  the  matter  of  the  phenomenon  to  the  thing  itself, 
and  therefore  to  regard  it  as  coming  wholly  from  with¬ 
out,  on  the  assumption  that  it  must  come  from  some¬ 
where,  or  as  Kant  expressed  it,  have  some  ground.  But 
as  we  cannot  isolate  such  qualities  as  are  known  only 
a  posteriori ,  nor  conceive  them  as  separated  and  purified 
from  those  which  are  certain  a  priori ,  but  on  the  other 
hand,  as  they  always  appear  enveloped  in  these  latter, 
Kant  teaches  that  we  can  know  the  existence  of  things 
in  themselves,  but  nothing  else  about  them ;  we  can  know 
that  they  are,  but  not  what  they  are.  The  nature  of 
things  in  themselves  remains  therefore,  for  him,  an  un¬ 
known  quantity,  an  x ■  For  the  form  of  the  phenomenon 


192 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


clothes  and  hides  the  nature  of  the  thing-in-itself  in  all 
cases.  We  can  say  this  at  most  —  since  the  above  a  priori 
forms  accrue  to  all  things  as  phenomena,  without  dis¬ 
tinction,  proceeding  as  they  do  from  our  intellect,  but 
the  things  at  the  same  time  show  considerable  diversity 
—  that  which  determines  this  difference,  that  is,  the 
specific  variety  of  things,  is  the  thing-in-itself. 

Looked  at  in  this  way,  Kant’s  assumption  and  presup¬ 
position  of  the  things  in  themselves,  notwithstanding  the 
subjectivity  of  all  our  forms  of  knowledge,  seems  to  be 
perfectly  justified  and  well  grounded.  It  is,  neverthe¬ 
less,  shown  to  be  untenable  when  its  only  argument, 
namely,  the  empirical  content  in  all  phenomena,  is  nar¬ 
rowly  tested  and  traced  back  to  its  origin.  It  is  certain 
that  in  empirical  knowledge  and  its  source,  perceptual 
presentment,  there  is  a  matter  which  is  independent  of 
its  form,  which  is  known  to  us  a  priori.  The  next  ques¬ 
tion  is,  as  to  whether  this  matter  is  of  objective  or  sub¬ 
jective  origin,  since  only  in  the  first  case  can  it  insure 
for  us  the  thing-in-itself.  If  we  pursue  it,  therefore,  to 
its  origin,  we  find  this  nowhere  else  but  in  our  sense- 
impression.  For  it  is  a  change  occurring  in  the  retina  of 
the  eye,  in  the  nerves  of  the  ear,  or  at  the  ends  of  the 
fingers,  which  induces  the  perceptual  presentment,  and 
thus  first  sets  in  play  the  whole  apparatus  of  our  forms 
of  knowledge,  which  lie  ready  a  priori ,  the  result  being 
the  perception  of  an  external  object.  On  the  change 
being  felt  in  the  sense-organ,  the  law  of  causality  is 
at  once  applied  by  means  of  a  necessary  and  indispen¬ 
sable  function  of  the  understanding  a  priori.  The  above, 
with  its  a  priori  certainty  and  necessity,  points  to  a 
cause  of  this  change  which,  since  it  does  not  stand  in 
the  arbitrary  power  of  the  subject,  appears  to  it  as  some¬ 
thing  external.  This  quality  receives  its  significance 
primarily  by  means  of  a  form  of  space,  which  is  added 
by  the  intellect  itself  for  the  purpose,  the  necessarily 
presupposed  cause  thereby  appearing  perceptually  as  an 
object  in  space  bearing  the  alterations  effected  by  it  in 
our  sense-organs,  as  though  they  were  properties  of  the 
thing-in-itself.  This  whole  process  may  be  found 
adequately  and  thoroughly  expounded  in  my  treatise  on 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


193 


the  (<  Law  of  Cause,”  §  21.  But  the  sense-impression, 
which  constitutes  the  starting  point  of  the  process  and 
furnishes  undeniably  the  whole  matter  of  empirical  per¬ 
ception,  is  something  altogether  subjective,  and  as  the 
entire  knowledge-forms,  by  means  of  which  the  objective 
perceptual  presentment  arises  out  of  this  matter  and  is 
projected  externally  in  accordance  with  Kant’s  correct 
demonstration,  are  no  less  of  subjective  origin,  it  is  clear 
that  the  matter,  as  well  as  the  form  of  perceptual  pre¬ 
sentment,  arises  from  the  subject.  Our  whole  empirical 
knowledge  is  accordingly  resolved  into  two  elements, 
both  of  which  have  their  origin  in  ourselves,  namely,  in 
the  sense-impression  and  in  the  forms  given  a  priori , 
that  is,  in  the  forms  embedded  in  the  functions  of  our 
intellect  or  brain,  time,  space,  and  causality,  to  which 
Kant  had  added  eleven  other  categories  of  the  under¬ 
standing,  demonstrated  by  me,  however,  as  superfluous 
and  inadmissible.  If  the  above  be  correct,  perceptual 
presentment  and  our  empirical  knowledge  resting  on  it, 
in  truth  furnish  no  data  for  conclusions  as  to  things  in 
themselves,  and  Kant  was  not  justified  on  his  principles 
in  assuming  such.  The  Lockean  philosophy,  like  all 
earlier  philosophies,  had  taken  the  law  of  causality  as 
absolute,  and  was  thereby  justified  in  concluding  from 
the  sense-impression  to  the  existence  of  real  things  ex¬ 
ternal  to  and  independent  of  us.  This  passage  from  the 
effect  to  the  cause  is,  however,  the  only  way  to  attain 
from  the  internal  and  subjectively  given  to  the  external 
and  objectively  existent.  Kant  therefore,  after  he  had 
vindicated  the  law  of  causality  for  the  knowledge-form 
of  the  subject,  found  this  way  no  longer  open  to  him. 
He  had  himself,  moreover,  often  enough  warned  us 
against  making  a  transcendent  use  of  the  category  of 
causality,  that  is,  a  use  extending  beyond  experience  and 
its  possibility. 

In  point  of  fact  the  thing-in-itself  is  never  to  be  arrived 
at  in  this  way,  nor  otherwise  by  that  of  pure  objective 
knowledge,  which  always  remains  presentment,  and  as 
such  has  its  root  in  the  subject,  and  can  never  furnish 
anything  really  distinct  from  the  presentment.  But  the 
thing-in-itself  can  only  be  arrived  at  by  shifting  the 
13 


194 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


standpoint,  that  is,  by  instead  of,  as  previously,  starting 
from  that  which  presents,  once  for  all  starting  from  that 
which  is  presented.  But  this  is  only  possible  in  one 
single  thing  which  is  attainable  by  us  all  from  within  as 
well  as  from  without,  and  is  thereby  given  in  a  double 
manner:  it  is  our  own  body  which,  in  the  objective 
world,  exists  as  presentment  in  space,  and  at  the  same 
time  proclaims  itself  as  Will  in  our  own  self-conscious¬ 
ness.  Thereby  is  furnished  the  key  at  once  to  the  under¬ 
standing  of  all  its  actions  and  motions  produced  by  ex¬ 
ternal  causes  (here  motives),  which  without  this  internal 
and  immediate  insight  into  its  essence,  would  remain  just 
as  incomprehensible  and  inexplicable  as  the  changes 
occurring  according  to  natural  laws  and  as  manifestations 
of  natural  forces,  in  those  other  bodies  which  are  only 
given  to  us  in  objective  perception;  and  hence  to  that  of 
the  permanent  substratum  of  these  actions,  that  wherein 
these  forces  have  root,  to  wit  the  body  itself.  This  im¬ 
mediate  knowledge  which  each  one  has  of  the  nature  of 
his  own  phenomenon,  given  him  like  all  others  only  in 
objective  perception,  must  thereupon  be  transferred  an¬ 
alogically  to  the  remaining  phenomena,  which  are  really 
the  only  ones  that  can  properly  be  said  to  be  given,  and 
becomes  then  the  key  to  the  knowledge  of  the  inner 
nature  of  things,  or,  in  other  words,  of  the  things-in- 
themselves.  One  could  only  attain  to  this  by  a  way 
quite  different  from  pure  objective  knowledge,  which  re¬ 
mains  mere  presentment,  by  taking  the  self-consciousness 
of  the  subject,  which  always  appears  as  animal  individual, 
to  aid,  and  by  making  it  the  exponent  of  the  concious- 
ness  of  other  things,  i.  e. ,  of  the  perceptive  intellect. 
This  is  the  way  which  I  have  followed,  and  it  is  the 
only  right  one,  the  narrow  gate  to  truth. 

But  instead  of  men  striking  out  this  way,  Kant’s  expo¬ 
sition  was  confounded  with  the  essence  of  the  subject, 
and  it  was  believed  that  with  the  former  the  latter  was 
refuted;  what  in  reality  were  mere  argumenta  ad  horn- 
inem ,  were  believed  accordingly  to  be  argumenta  ad  rem , 
and  in  consequence  of  these  Schultzian  attacks  Kant’s 
philosophy  was  declared  untenable.  The  field  was  now 
open  for  the  sophists  and  wind  bags.  The  first  to  set 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


195 


up  in  this  line  was  Fichte,  who,  because  the  thing-in- 
itself  had  come  into  discredit,  straightway  proceeded  to 
construct  a  system  without  any  thing-in-itself,  and  there¬ 
fore  rejected  the  assumption  of  anything  but  what  was 
our  presentment  pure  and  simple,  making  the  knowing 
subject  all  in  all,  or  at  least  making  it  produce  every¬ 
thing  from  its  own  resources.  For  this  purpose  he  did 
away  at  once  with  the  essential  and  valuable  in  Kant’s 
doctrines, — the  distinction  between  a  priori  and  a  poste¬ 
riori , —  and  thereby  that  between  the  phenomenon  and  the 
thing-in-itself,  inasmuch  as  he  declared  everything  to  be 
a  priori,  while  being  naturally  without  any  proof  of  such 
a  monstrous  assumption,  he  offered  us  partly  sophistical 
and  partly  absurd  sham  demonstrations,  whose  futility 
hid  itself  under  the  garb  of  depth  and  of  the  assumed 
Incomprehensibility  arising  therefrom.  He  laid  claim, 
moreover,  openly  and  audaciously,  to  intellectual  intui¬ 
tion, —  in  other  words,  to  inspiration.  For  a  public  desti¬ 
tute  of  all  power  of  judgment,  and  unworthy  of  Kant, 
this  certainly  sufficed.  Such  a  public  held  self-assump¬ 
tion  for  excellence,  and  immediately  declared  Fichte  to 
be  a  much  greater  philosopher  than  Kant.  At  the  pres¬ 
ent  day,  indeed,  there  are  not  wanting  philosophical 
writers  who  are  anxious  to  foist  the  false  fame  of  Fichte, 
now  become  traditional,  on  to  the  new  generation,  and 
quite  seriously  assure  us  that  what  Kant  merely  attempted 
Fichte  had  accomplished,  and  that  he  was  properly  the 
right  man.  These  gentlemen,  by  their  Midas-judgment, 
expose  their  entire  incapacity  to  understand  Kant,  and, 
indeed,  lay  bare  so  palpably  their  deplorable  ignorance, 
that  it  is  to  be  hoped  the  rising  and  finally  disillusionized 
generation  will  guard  themselves  from  destroying  their 
time  and  brains  with  the  countless  histories  of  philosophy 
and  other  writings  produced  by  them.  I  take  this  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  recalling  a  little  work,  from  which  it  may  be 
seen  what  impression  Fichte’s  personal  appearance  and 
ways  made  on  an  unprejudiced  contemporary.  It  is 
called  the  <(  Cabinet  of  Berlin  Characters,  ®  and  appeared 
in  1808  without  indication  of  place  of  printing;  it  is  said 
to  be  by  Buchholz,  but  as  to  this  I  am  not  certain. 
With  it  may  be  compared  what  the  jurist  Anselm  Von 


196 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


Feuerbach,  in  the  letters  issued  in  1852  by  his  son,  says 
about  Fichte;  as  also  (<  Schiller’s  and  Fichte’s  Corre¬ 
spondence,®  1847;  from  all  of  which  a  correct  idea  may 
be  formed  of  this  sham  philosopher. 

It  was  not  long  before  Schelling,  worthy  of  his  prede¬ 
cessor,  trod  in  Fichte’s  footsteps,  which  he  nevertheless 
forsook  in  order  to  proclaim  his  own  invention,  the  abso¬ 
lute  identity  of  the  objective  and  subjective,  or  the  Ideal 
and  Real,  which  would  imply  that  all  which  great  minds 
like  Locke  and  Kant,  had,  with  incredible  expenditure 
of  acuteness  and  consideration,  separated,  should  be  again 
dissolved  in  the  broth  of  his  said  absolute  identity.  For 
the  doctrines  of  the  two  former  thinkers  may  be  very 
suitably  designated  as  those  of  the  absolute  diversity 
of  the  Ideal  and  Real,  or  of  the  subjective  and  ob¬ 
jective.  But  now  things  went  further  from  confusion  to 
confusion,  by  Fichte  having  introduced  incomprehensi¬ 
bility  of  speech,  and  having  put  the  appearance  of  depth 
in  the  place  of  thought,  the  seeds  being  scattered  which 
were  to  result  in  one  corruption  after  another,  and  finally 
in  that  total  demoralization  of  philosophy,  and,  through 
philosophy,  of  all  literature  which  has  appeared  in  our 
day. 

After  Schelling  followed  a  philosophical  creature  of 
ministers,  the  great  philosopher  Hegel,  manufactured 
from  above  with  a  political  but  miscalculated  purpose,  a  flat, 
commonplace,  repulsive,  ignorant  charlatan,  who,  with 
unparalleled  presumption,  conceit,  and  absurdity,  pasted 
together  a  system  which  was  trumpeted  by  his  venal  ad¬ 
herents  as  immortal  wisdom;  and  by  blockheads  really 
taken  for  it,  whereby  such  a  perfect  chorus  of  admira¬ 
tion  arose  as  had  never  before  been  known.  The  ex¬ 
tended  intellectual  influence  thus  violently  acquired  by 
such  a  man  had  as  its  consequence  the  ruination  of  the 
learning  of  a  whole  generation.  The  admirer  of  this 
pseudo-philosophy  has  the  mockery  of  posterity  in  store 
for  him,  a  mockery  which  is  already  preluded  by  the 
delightfully  audible  laughter  of  neighbors.  For  should  it 
not  sound  delightful  to  my  ears  when  the  nation,  whose 
learned  caste  has  for  thirty  years  spurned  my  labors  as 
worth  nothing  and  less  than  nothing,  not  even  a  passing 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


197 


glance,  should  have  the  reputation  among  its  neighbors 
of  having  revered  and  even  deified  throughout  these  thirty 
years,  as  the  highest  and  most  unheard-of  wisdom,  what 
is  wholly  bad,  absurd,  nonsensical,  and  subservient  merely 
to  material  ends  ?  I  ought,  I  suppose,  as  a  good  patriot, 
to  go  my  way  in  the  praise  of  the  Germans  and  of  Ger¬ 
manism,  and  rejoice  to  have  belonged  to  them  and  to 
no  other  nation  ?  But  it  is  as  the  Spanish  proverb  says : 
<(  Cada  uno  cnenta  de  la  feria ,  como  le  va  en  ella  ®  (  Every¬ 
one  reports  respecting  the  fair,  according  as  it  has  fared 
with  him  there).  Go  to  the  Democolacs  and  get  yourself 
praised.  Well-developed,  unwieldy,  minister-bepuffed, 
nonsense-mongering  charlatans,  without  intellect  and 
without  merit,  such  as  these  belong  to  the  Germans,  not 
men  like  myself!  Such  is  the  testimony  which  I  have  to 
give  them  in  parting.  Wieland  (“Letters  to  Merck,®  p. 
239)  calls  it  a  misfortune  to  be  bom  a  German;  Burger, 
Mozart,  Beethoven,  and  others  would  have  agreed  with 
him;  I  also.  It  rests  upon  the  fact  that  <ro<j>ov  elvai  dec  rdv 
iiuyvuxrdfitvov  tov  <ro<f>6v  or  il  n’y  a  que  V esprit  qui  sent  V es¬ 
prit. 

To  the  most  brilliant  and  meritorious  sides  of  the  Kan¬ 
tian  philosophy,  belongs  incontestably  the  <(  Transcen¬ 
dental  Dialectic,  ®  by  which  he  has  so  far  raised  speculative 
theology  and  psychology  from  their  foundations,  that  since 
then  no  one  has  been  able,  even  with  the  best  intentions, 
to  set  them  up  again.  What  a  blessing  for  the  human 
mind!  For  do  we  not  see,  throughout  the  whole  period 
from  the  revival  of  the  sciences  to  Kant,  that  the 
thoughts  of  even  the  greatest  men  receive  a  twist,  in¬ 
deed  are  often  completely  distorted,  in  consequence  of 
these  two  absolutely  sacred  presuppositions,  which  cripple 
all  intellect,  which  are  removed  from  all  investigation, 
and  therefore  dead  to  it  ?  Are  not  the  first  and  most 
essential  convictions  respecting  ourselves  and  all  things 
twisted  and  falsified,  if  we  start  with  the  presupposition 
that  everything  is  produced  and  ordered  from  without, 
according  to  the  notions  and  preconceived  purposes  of  a 
personal  and  therefore  individual  being  ?  In  the  same 
way  the  fundamental  essence  of  man  is  assumed  to  be  a 
thinking  essence,  and  to  consist  of  two  wholly  hetero- 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


198 

geneous  parts,  which  have  come  together  and  been 
soldered  together  without  knowing  how,  and  had  to  ac¬ 
commodate  themselves  to  each  other  as  well  as  they 
could,  in  order  to  be  again  forever  severed,  noleyites 
volentes  ?  How  powerfully  Kant’s  critique  of  these  fancies 
and  of  their  grounds  has  acted  upon  all  the  sciences,  is 
obvious  from  the  fact  that  since  then,  at  least  in  the 
higher  German  literature,  these  presuppositions  appear 
only  in  a  figurative  sense,  and  are  no  longer  seriously 
made,  being  left  for  popular  literature  and  for  the  pro¬ 
fessors  of  philosophy,  who  earn  their  bread  by  them. 
Our  works  on  natural  science  keep  themselves  espe- 
-cially  free  from  them,  while,  on  the  contrary,  the  English, 
by  aiming  at  them  in  their  modes  of  expression  and 
diatribes,  or  else  by  apologies,  lower  themselves  in  our 
eyes.  Immediately  before  Kant,  indeed,  things  were 
quite  different  in  this  respect;  we  see,  for  instance, 
even  the  eminent  Lichtenberg,  whose  early  education 
was  pre-Kantian,  in  his  treatise  on  physiognomy,  earn¬ 
estly  and  with  evident  conviction  adhering  to  this  an¬ 
tithesis  of  soul  and  body,  and  thereby  injuring  his  cause. 

He  who  has  estimated  the  high  value  of  the  (<  Transcen¬ 
dental  Dialectic,  ”  will  not  find  it  superfluous  if  I  here  deal 
with  it  somewhat  more  in  detail.  In  the  first  place,  there¬ 
fore,  I  lay  before  those  who  know  and  interest  them¬ 
selves  in  the  critique  of  reason,  the  following  essay  on 
the  critique  of  rational  psychology,  as  it  is  presented  in 
its  entirety  in  the  first  edition  —  for  in  the  following  edi¬ 
tions  it  appears  castrated.  The  argument  which  is  there 
criticised,  p.  361,  seq.,  under  the  title  <(  Paralogism  of  the 
Personality, ®  ought  to  be  quite  otherwise  conceived  and 
therefore  criticised.  For  Kant’s  certainly  profound  ex¬ 
position  is  not  only  too  subtle  and  difficult  to  be  under¬ 
stood,  but  it  may  also  be  objected  to  it,  that  it  assumes 
the  object  of  self-consciousness,  or  in  Kant’s  language,  of 
the  internal  sense,  suddenly  and  without  further  justi¬ 
fication,  as  the  object  of  an  alien  consciousness,  or 
indeed  of  an  external  perception,  in  order  thereupon  to 
judge  it  according  to  the  laws  and  analogies  of  the  cor¬ 
poreal  world.  Two  distinct  times  are  even  allowed  to  be 
assumed  (p.  363),  the  one  in  the  consciousness  of  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


199 


judged,  the  other  in  that  of  the  judging  subject,  which 
do  not  coincide.  I  would  give  the  argument  in  question, 
from  the  personality,  quite  another  turn,  and  present  it 
accordingly  in  the  two  following  propositions :  — 

1.  One  can  establish  a  priori  respecting  all  motion  in 
general,  no  matter  of  whatever  kind  it  may  be,  that  it  is 
primarily  perceptible  by  the  comparison  with  something 
resting;  whence  it  follows  that  the  course  of  time,  with 
all  that  is  in  it,  could  not  be  perceived  were  it  not  for 
something  that  has  no  part  in  it,  and  with  whose  rest 
we  compare  its  motion.  It  is  quite  true  that  we  here 
judge  according  to  the  analogy  of  motion  in  space;  but 
space  and  time  must  always  serve  mutually  to  explain 
each  other.  For  this  reason  also  we  have  to  imagine 
time  under  the  figure  of  a  straight  line  in  order  to  appre¬ 
hend  it  perceptually,  to  construct  it  a  priori.  In  accord¬ 
ance  therewith,  we  cannot  imagine  that  if  everything  in 
our  consciousness  at  once  and  together  moved  forward  in 
the  flux  of  time,  that  this  forward  movement  would 
nevertheless  be  perceptible,  but  in  order  to  this  we  must 
assume  something  fixed,  past  which  time  with  its  con¬ 
tent  flows.  For  the  perception  of  the  external  sense, 
this  is  accomplished  by  matter  as  the  enduring  substance 
under  the  change  of  accidents,  as  Kant  also  explains  in 
the  demonstration  to  the  <(  First  Analogy  of  Experience,® 
p.  183  of  the  1st  edition.  In  this  very  place,  however,  he 
commits  the  insupportable  blunder,  already  criticised  by 
me  elsewhere,  and  which  contradicts,  moreover,  his  own 
doctrine,  of  saying  that  it  is  not  time  that  flows,  but 
only  the  phenomena  in  time.  That  this  is  fundamentally 
false  is  proved  by  the  fixed  certainty  implanted  in  us  all, 
that  if  all  things  in  heaven  and  on  earth  suddenly  stood 
still  time  would  continue  its  course  undisturbed  thereby; 
so  that  if  nature  were  later  on  again  to  get  under  way 
the  question  as  to  the  length  of  the  previous  pause 
would  be  capable  in  itself  of  a  perfectly  exact  answer. 
Were  it  otherwise,  time  would  have  to  stand  still  with 
the  watch  or  when  the  latter  got  too  fast,  go  along  with 
it.  But  precisely  this  relation,  together  with  our  cer¬ 
tainty  a  priori  respecting  it,  proves  incontrovertibly  that 
time  has  its  course,  and  therefore  its  essence,  in  our 


200 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


head  and  not  outside  of  us.  In  the  realm  of  external 
intuition,  as  I  have  said,  the  enduring  is  matter;  with 
our  argument  from  the  personality  the  argument  is  on 
the  other  hand  respecting  the  perception  of  the  internal 
sense,  in  which  that  of  the  external  is  again  taken  up. 
I  said,  therefore,  that  if  our  consciousness  with  its  entire 
content  moved  forward  uniformly  in  the  stream  of  time, 
we  could  not  be  aware  of  this  motion.  For  this,  then, 
there  must  be  something  in  the  consciousness  that  is  it¬ 
self  immovable.  But  this  cannot  be  anything  other  than 
the  knowing  subject  itself  which,  contemplates,  unmoved 
and  unaltered,  the  course  of  time  and  the  change  of  its 
content.  Before  its  gaze  life  pursues  its  course  like  a 
drama.  We  shall  be  sensible  how  little  part  it  has  itself 
in  this  course  if  in  old  age  we  recall  vividly  to  ourselves 
the  scenes  of  youth  and  childhood. 

2.  Internally  in  self-consciousness,  or  to  speak  with 
Kant,  through  the  internal  sense,  I  only  know  in  time. 
But  objectively  considered,  nothing  permanent  can  exist 
in  mere  time,  since  such  implies  a  duration,  but  this  a 
simultaneity  and  this  again  space.  (The  justification  of 
this  proposition  will  be  found  in  my  treatise  on  (<  The  Law 
of  Cause,®  §  18,  besides  in  (<The  World  as  Will  and  Pre¬ 
sentment,®  2d  ed.,  vol.  i.,  §  4,  pp.  10  and  11,  and  p. 
531;  3d  ed.,  pp.  10  and  11,  and  560.)  Notwithstanding  all 
this,  I  find  myself  as  a  matter  of  fact  as  the  substra¬ 
tum  of  the  same,  which  endures,  that  is,  which  ever 
remains,  in  spite  of  all  change  in  my  presentments, 
which  is  related  to  the  presentments  as  matter  is  to 
its  changing  accidents,  and  consequently  no  less  than 
the  latter  deserves  the  name  of  substance,  and  since  it  is 
not  spacial  and  therefore  unextended,  that  of  simple  sub¬ 
stance.  Since  now,  as  already  said,  no  permanency  can 
take  place  in  mere  time  by  itself  alone,  but  the  substance 
in  question  is  perceived  on  the  other  hand,  not  by  the 
external  sense  and  consequently  not  in  space,  we  must,  in 
order  as  against  the  flux  of  time  to  think  it  as  perma¬ 
nent,  assume  it  as  something  lying  outside  time  and  say 
accordingly,  all  object  lies  in  time,  but  the  specially  know¬ 
ing  subject,  not.  As  now  outside  time  there  is  no  cessa¬ 
tion  or  end  we  should  have  in  the  knowing  subject  a 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


201 


permanent,  albeit  neither  spacial  nor  temporal,  and  there¬ 
fore  indestructible,  substance. 

In  order  then  to  demonstrate  the  argument  from  the 
personality,  as  thus  stated,  to  be  a  paralogism,  one  should 
have  to  say  that  the  second  proposition  of  the  same  takes 
an  empirical  act  to  aid  —  to  which  this  other  may  be  op¬ 
posed —  that  the  knowing  subject  is  bound  up  with  life, 
and  indeed  with  waking,  that  its  continuance  during  both 
in  nowise  proves  that  it  can  exist  apart  from  them.  For 
this  actual  permanence,  during  the  period  of  the  con¬ 
scious  state,  is  far  removed,  even  toto  genere  distinct, 
from  the  permanence  of  matter  (the  origin  and  sole  real¬ 
ization  of  the  conception  substance),  which  we  know  in 
perception,  and  in  which  we  discern  a  priori  not  merely 
its  actual  duration,  but  its  necessary  indestructibility,  and 
the  impossibility  of  its  annihilation.  Yet  it  is  according 
to  the  analogy  of  this  truly  indestructible  substance  that 
we  would  wish  to  assume  a  thinking  substance  in  our¬ 
selves,  which  would  then  be  certain  of  an  endless  continu¬ 
ance.  But  apart  from  the  fact  that  this  latter  would  be 
an  analogy  with  a  mere  phenomenon  (matter),  the  error 
which  the  dialectical  reason,  in  the  above  demonstration, 
commits,  consists  in  that  it  treats  the  permanence  of  the 
subject,  throughout  the  change  of  all  its  presentments 
in  time,  like  the  permanence  of  the  matter  given  to  us 
in  perception,  and  accordingly  includes  both  under  the 
conception  of  substance.  Everything  which  it,  although 
under  the  condition  of  perception,  can  predicate  of  mat¬ 
ter  a  priori ,  especially  continuance  through  all  time,  can 
be  attributed  to  the  pretended  immaterial  substance,  and 
this  although  the  permanence  of  the  latter  only  rests 
upon  the  fact  that  it  is  assumed  as  existing  in  no  time 
at  all,  let  alone  in  all  times,  and  as  a  result  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  perception,  in  consequence  of  which  indestructi¬ 
bility  is  predicated  of  matter  a  priori ,  are  here  expressly 
abolished,  especially  the  spacial.  But  on  this  precisely 
rests  (as  has  been  shown  in  the  above  quoted  passages 
of  my  writings),  the  permanence  of  the  same. 

As  to  the  demonstrations  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
from  its  assumed  simplicity  and  consequent  indissolubil¬ 
ity,  by  which  the  only  possible  kind  of  decay,  the  disso- 


202 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


lution  of  the  parts,  is  excluded ;  it  may  be  said  generally 
that  all  laws  respecting  origination,  dissolution,  change, 
continuance,  etc. ,  which  we  know  either  a  priori  or  a  pos¬ 
teriori ,  are  only  valid  of  the  corporeal  world  given  us 
objectively,  and  also  conditioned  by  our  intellect.  As 
soon,  therefore,  as  we  depart  from  this,  and  talk  of  im¬ 
material  essences,  we  have  no  longer  any  justification 
for  applying  those  laws  and  rules  in  order  to  maintain 
whether  the  origination  and  dissolution  of  such  essences 
is  possible  or  not,  for  here  every  clue  fails  us.  In  this 
connection,  all  such  proofs  of  immortality  from  the  sim¬ 
plicity  of  the  thinking  substance  are  invalid.  For  the 
amphiboly  lies  in  that  an  immaterial  substance  is  spoken 
of,  and  then  the  laws  of  material  substance  are  inter¬ 
polated  in  order  to  be  applied  to  it. 

In  the  meantime  the  paralogism  of  the  personality,  as 
I  have  apprehended  it,  gives  in  its  first  argument  the 
demonstration  a  priori  that  something  permanent  must 
lie  in  our  consciousness;  and  in  the  second  argument  it 
proves  the  same  thing  a  posteriori.  Taken  altogether,  it 
will  seem  that  the  truth  which,  according  to  the  rule, 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  every  error,  rational  psychology 
included,  has  its  root  in  the  above.  This  truth  is,  that 
even  in  our  empirical  consciousness  an  eternal  point  can 
assuredly  be  shown,  but  only  a  point,  and  only  shown  to 
be,  without  the  material  for  any  further  demonstration 
being  derived  from  it.  I  refer  here  to  my  own  doc¬ 
trines,  according  to  which  that  is  the  knowing  subject 
which  knows  all,  but  is  not  itself  known.  We  therefore 
conceive  it  as  the  fixed  point  past  which  time,  with  its 
presentments,  flows,  the  very  course  of  time  being  only 
known  in  opposition  to  something  permanent.  I  have 
called  this  the  point  of  contact  of  the  object  with  the 
subject.  The  subject  of  knowledge  is  with  me,  like  the 
body  whose  brain-function  it  objectively  presents,  a  phe¬ 
nomenon  of  the  will,  which,  as  the  only  thing-in-itself, 
is  here  the  substratum  of  a  correlate  of  all  phenomena, 
that  is,  of  the  subject  of  knowledge. 

If  we  now  turn  to  rational  cosmology  we  find  preg¬ 
nant  expressions,  in  its  antinomies,  of  the  perplexity  aris¬ 
ing  from  the  law  of  cause,  perplexities  which  have  from 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


203 


time  immemorial  forced  men  to  philosophize.  To  em¬ 
phasize  this  in  another,  clearer,  and  less  complex  man¬ 
ner  than  has  been  done  by  Kant,  is  the  object  of  the 
following-  exposition,  which,  unlike  the  Kantian,  is  not 
merely  dialectical,  operating  with  abstract  concepts,  but 
which  applies  itself  immediately  to  the  perceptive  con¬ 
sciousness. 

Time  can  have  no  beginning,  and  no  cause  can  be 
primal.  Both  are  a  priori  certain,  and  therefore  undeni¬ 
able,  for  all  beginning  is  in  time,  and  therefore  presup¬ 
poses  time,  and  every  cause  must  have  a  previous  one 
behind  it,  whose  effect  it  is.  How,  then,  could  a  first 
beginning  of  the  world  and  the  things  therein  have  ever 
taken  place  ?  (The  first  verse  of  the  Pentateuch  would 
seem  a  petitio  principii ,  and  this  in  the  most  literal  sense 
of  the  term).  On  the  contrary,  if  a  first  beginning  had 
not  been,  the  real  present  would  not  be  now,  but  would 
be  long  past,  for  between  it  and  the  first  beginning  we 
must  assume  some  time,  however  limited,  but  which  — 
if  we  deny  the  beginning,  in  other  words,  if  we  push 
it  back  to  infinity  —  is  also  pushed  back  to  infinity. 
But  even  if  we  assume  a  first  beginning,  this  does 
not  assist  us  in  the  last  resort,  for  we  have  thereby 
arbitrarily  cut  off  the  causal  chain,  after  which  we 
shall  immediately  find  mere  time  itself  a  difficulty. 
The  ever-renewed  question,  namely,  (( why  this  first  be¬ 
ginning  did  not  take  place  earlier  ? n  will  follow  it  up 
further  and  further  through  time,  whereby  the  chain 
of  causes  lying  between  it  and  us  is  carried  up  higher  and 
higher,  so  that  it  can  never  be  long  enough  to  reach  down  to 
the  actual  present,  and  accordingly  it  will  have  al¬ 
ways  not  yet  reached  the  present.  But  this  is  con¬ 
tradicted  by  the  fact  that  the  present  is  really  there, 
and  constitutes  indeed  our  only  datum  for  the  reckon¬ 
ing.  The  justification  of  the  foregoing  inconvenient 
question  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  first  beginning 
as  such,  implies  no  preceding  cause,  and  therefore 
might  just  as  well  have  occurred  trillions  of  years 
earlier.  For  if  it  required  no  cause  for  its  occurrence, 
it  did  not  have  to  wait  for  any,  and  must  accordingly 
have  taken  place  infinitely  sooner,  since  there  existed 


204 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


nothing  to  prevent  it.  For  as  nothing  need  precede 
the  first  beginning  as  its  cause,  so  nothing  need  pre¬ 
cede  it  as  its  hindrance;  it  has,  therefore,  to  wait  for 
nothing,  and  never  comes  soon  enough.  It  matters 
not  in  what  point  of  time  we  fix  it,  we  can  never 
see  why  it  should  not  have  existed  much  sooner.  This, 
therefore,  pushes  it  ever  further  back,  for  since  time 
itself  can  have  no  beginning,  there  is  always  an  in¬ 
finite  time  elapsed  up  to  the  present  moment,  so  that 
the  throwing  backward  of  the  beginning  of  the  world 
is  always  endless,  every  causal  chain  from  it  to  us 
proving  too  short,  the  consequence  being  that  we  never 
reach  from  it  to  the  present  time.  Hence  it  comes 
that  a  given  fixed  point  of  connection  {point  d' attache'), 
fails  us,  and  therefore  we  have  to  assume  such  a  one 
arbitrarily,  but  it  always  vanishes  before  our  hands 
backward  into  infinity.  And  so  it  also  happens  that 
when  we  posit  a  first  beginning  and  proceed  there¬ 
from  we  never  attain  from  it  to  the  present  time. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  start  from  the  really  given 
present  we  never  attain,  as  already  indicated,  to  the 
first  beginning.  For  every  cause  to  which  we  proceed 
must  always  be  the  effect  of  a  previous  one,  which  finds 
itself  in  the  same  case  and  can  reach  no  end.  The 
world  is  therefore  now  beginningless,  like  infinite  time 
itself,  in  the  contemplation  of  which  our  imaginative 
faculty  is  wearied,  and  our  understanding  receives  no 
satisfaction. 

These  two  opposite  views  may  be  compared  to  a  stick 
of  which  one  end,  it  matters  not  which,  may  be  easily 
grasped,  while  the  other  extends  itself  forever  into 
infinity.  The  essential  of  the  matter  may  be  resumed 
in  the  proposition  that  time,  which  is  absolutely  infinite, 
must  always  be  too  great  for  a  world  conceived  as  finite. 
But  at  bottom  the  truth  of  the  (<  antithesis  w  of  the  Kan¬ 
tian  antinomy  is  confirmed  thereby,  for  if  we  proceed 
from  that  which  is  alone  certain  and  really  given,  the 
beginninglessness  of  time  results.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  first  beginning  is  merely  an  arbitrary  assumption, 
which  cannot  be  united  as  such,  with  what  we  have  said 
is  the  only  certain  and  real,  the  present.  For  the  rest 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


205 


we  must  regard  these  considerations  as  disclosing  the 
absurdities  ensuing  from  the  assumption  of  the  absolute 
reality  of  time,  and  consequently  as  confirmations  of  the 
main  thesis  of  Kant. 

The  question  as  to  whether  the  world  is  bounded  in 
space  or  is  unbounded,  is  not  per  se  transcendent,  but 
rather  empirical,  since  the  question  always  lies  within 
the  realm  of  possible  experience,  the  reduction  of  it  to 
reality  being  only  forbidden  us  by  our  own  physical  con¬ 
formation.  A  priori  there  is  here  no  demonstrably  cer¬ 
tain  argument,  either  for  the  one  or  the  other  alternative, 
so  that  the  question  really  resembles  an  antinomy,  inas¬ 
much  as  with  the  one  as  with  the  other  assumption 
considerable  difficulties  present  themselves.  A  bounded 
world  in  infinite  space  vanishes,  let  it  be  ever  so  large, 
to  an  infinitely  small  quantity,  and  one  asks  what  is  the 
remaining  space  there  for  ?  On  the  other  hand,  one  can¬ 
not  conceive  that  no  fixed  star  should  be  the  farthest  in 
space.  It  may  be  observed,  by  the  way,  that  the  planets 
of  such  a  star  would  only  have  a  starry  heaven  at  night 
during  a  half  of  their  year,  during  the  other  half  a  star¬ 
less  heaven,  which  would  certainly  make  a  very  uncanny 
impression  on  the  inhabitants.  The  foregoing  question, 
therefore,  may  be  thus  expressed,  <(  Is  there  a  fixed  star 
whose  planets  stand  in  this  predicament  or  not  ?  ®  Here 
it  evinces  itself  as  obviously  empirical. 

In  my  critique  of  the  Kantian  philosophy,  I  have  shown 
the  whole  assumption  of  the  antinomies  to  be  false  and 
illusory.  With  due  consideration,  however,  everyone  will 
at  once  recognize  it  as  impossible  that  conceptions,  cor¬ 
rectly  drawn  from  phenomena  and  their  a  priori  certain 
laws,  should,  when  combined  according  to  the  laws  of 
logic  into  judgments  and  conclusions,  lead  to  contradic¬ 
tions.  For  if  this  were  the  case,  contradictions  would  have 
to  lie  in  the  perceptually-given  phenomenon  itself,  or  in 
the  regulative  connection  of  its  members,  which  is  an 
impossible  assumption.  For  the  perceptual,  as  such,  knows 
no  contradiction  at  all;  the  latter  term  has  in  respect  of 
it  no  meaning  or  significance,  since  it  exists  merely  in 
abstract  knowledge  or  reflection.  One  can  perfectly  well, 
either  openly  or  covertly,  assume  something  and  at  the 


206 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


same  time  not  assume  it,  in  other  words,  contradict  one¬ 
self,  but  something  real  cannot  at  the  same  time  both  be 
and  not  be.  The  opposite  of  the  foregoing,  Zeno  the 
eleatic  certainly  sought  to  prove  with  his  well-known 
sophisms,  as  also  Kant  with  his  antinomies.  I  therefore 
refer  the  reader  to  my  critique  of  the  latter. 

Kant’s  service  to  speculative  theology  has  already 
been  generally  touched  upon.  In  order  to  emphasize  it 
still  more  I  will  now  as  shortly  as  may  be,  endeavor  to 
make  the  essential  of  the  matter  as  comprehensible  as 
possible  in  my  way. 

In  the  Christian  religion  the  existence  of  God  is  a  thing 
presupposed  and  raised  above  all  discussion.  This  is  only 
natural,  for  it  is  essential  thereto,  and  is  in  this  case  based 
upon  revelation.  I  regard  it  therefore  as  a  blunder  of 
the  Rationalists  when  they  attempt  in  their  dogmas  to 
demonstrate  the  existence  of  God  otherwise  than  from 
the  Scriptures.  They  in  their  innocence  do  not  know  how 
dangerous  is  this  amusement.  Philosophy,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  a  science,  and  as  such  has  no  articles  of  faith. 
In  philosophy,  therefore,  nothing  may  be  assumed  as  ex¬ 
istent,  except  either  what  is  directly  given  in  experience, 
or  what  is  demonstrated  by  indubitable  arguments.  The 
latter  people  certainly  long  believed  themselves  to  be  in 
the  possession  of,  when  Kant  disillusionized  the  world  on 
this  point,  and  so  decisively  demonstrated  the  impossibility 
of  such  proofs,  that  since  then  no  philosopher  in  Germany 
has  again  attempted  to  resuscitate  them.  Herein  Kant 
was  perfectly  justified,  and  what  he  did  was  of  the  high¬ 
est  service,  for  a  theoretical  dogma  which  presumes  to 
stamp  everyone  who  refuses  to  admit  its  validity  as  a 
rogue,  deserves  once  for  all  to  be  seriously  put  to  the 
test. 

The  case  of  the  assumed  demonstration  is  as  follows. 
Inasmuch  as  the  reality  of  the  existence  of  God  cannot 
be  shown  by  empirical  reasoning,  the  next  step  should 
properly  be  to  establish  its  possibility,  in  the  course  of 
doing  which  one  would  encounter  enough  difficulties. 
But,  instead  of  this,  its  necessity  was  undertaken  to  be 
proved,  i.  e .,  it  was  undertaken  to  demonstrate  God  as 

NECESSARY  ESSENCE. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


20  7 


Now  necessity,  as  I  have  often  shown,  is  never  any¬ 
thing  more  than  the  dependence  of  a  consequence  on  its 
cause,  in  other  words,  the  appearance  or  positing  of  the 
effect  because  the  cause  is  given.  To  this  end  accord¬ 
ingly  the  choice  lay  between  the  four  forms  of  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  cause  demonstrated  by  me,  and  of  these  the  two 
first  only  were  found  to  be  admissible.  There  arose 
therefore  two  theological  demonstrations,  the  cosmological 
and  the  ontological,  the  first  derived  from  the  principle 
of  the  ground  of  Becoming  (cause),  the  other  from  that 
of  the  ground  of  Knowing.  The  first  seeks  to  establish 
the  necessity  referred  to  as  physical  according  to  the  law 
of  causality,  inasmuch  as  the  world  is  conceived  as  an 
effect  which  must  have  a  cause.  To  this  cosmological 
demonstration  the  assistance  and  support  of  the  physico- 
theological  is  added.  The  cosmological  argument  is  most 
powerfully  expressed  in  the  Wolffian  version  of  it,  which 
is  as  follows :  <(  If  any  thing  at  all  exists,  there  exists  an 
absolutely  necessary  Being.  ®  By  this  is  to  be  understood 
either  that  which  is  itself  given,  or  the  first  of  the  causes 
through  which  it  attains  to  existence.  The  latter  is  then 
assumed.  This  demonstration  has  obviously  the  weakness 
of  being  a  conclusion  from  the  consequence  to  the  cause, 
to  which  form  of  conclusion  logic  refuses  all  claim  to 
certainty.  It  ignores  the  fact  which  I  have  often  pointed 
out,  that  we  can  only  think  any  thing  as  necessary  in  so 
far  as  it  is  effect,  not  in  so  far  as  it  is  cause  of  another 
given  thing.  Besides,  the  law  of  causality  when  applied 
in  this  way  proves  too  much.  For  if  it  would  carry  us 
from  the  world  back  to  its  cause,  it  does  not  allow  us  to 
remain  by  this,  but  leads  us  further  back  still  to  the 
cause  of  the  cause,  and  so  onward  and  remorselessly  on¬ 
ward  in  infinitum.  This  is  involved  in  its  very  nature. 
We  are  in  the  position  of  Goethe’s  magician’s  apprentice, 
whose  imp  began  indeed  at  command,  but  refused  to  leave 
off  again.  Add  to  this  that  the  force  and  validity  of  the 
law  of  causality  only  extends  to  the  form  of  things  and 
not  to  their  matter.  It  is  the  clue  to  the  change  of 
forms  and  nothing  more;  the  matter  remains  untouched 
by  all  their  coming  and  going,  a  fact  which  we  discern 
before  all  experience,  and  therefore  know  with  certainty. 


208 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


Finally,  the  cosmological  demonstration  is  upset  by  the 
transcendental  argument  that  the  law  of  causality  is 
demonstrably  of  subjective  origin,  and  therefore  merely 
applicable  by  our  intellect  to  phenomena,  and  not  to  things 

IN  THEMSELVES.* 

As  already  said,  the  physico-theological  demonstration 
is  given  as  a  subsidiary  aid  to  the  cosmological,  in  order 
that  it  should  afford  confirmation,  substantiation,  plausi¬ 
bility,  color,  and  form  to  the  assumption  introduced  by 
the  former.  But  it  can  only  come  in  with  the  presup¬ 
position  of  the  first  demonstration,  the  explanation  and 
amplification  of  which  it  is.  Its  procedure  consists  in 
that  it  raises  the  already  presupposed  cause  of  the  world 
to  a  knowing  and  willing  being,  inasmuch  as  by  induc¬ 
tion  from  the  many  effects  which  may  be  explained  by 
such  a  cause,  it  seeks  to  establish  this  cause.  But  induc¬ 
tion  can,  at  most,  afford  strong  probability,  certainty  never. 
Besides,  as  already  said,  this  whole  demonstration  is  con¬ 
ditioned  by  the  previous  one.  But  if  one  goes  more 
closely  and  seriously  into  this  favorite  physico-theology, 
and  tests  it  in  the  light  of  my  philosophy,  it  is  seen  to 
be  the  carrying-out  of  a  fundamentally  false  view  of  na¬ 
ture,  which  degrades  the  immediate  phenomenon  or  ob- 
jectivation  of  the  will  to  a  mere  mediate  one,  and  thus, 
instead  of  recognizing  in  natural  existences  the  original, 

*  Looking  at  things  realistically  and  objectively,  it  is  as  clear  as  the 
noonday  that  the  world  maintains  itself.  Organic  beings  subsist  and 
propagate  themselves  by  virtue  of  their  own  inward  and  original  vital 
force.  Inorganic  bodies  bear  in  themselves  the  forces  of  which  physics 
and  chemistry  are  the  mere  description,  and  the  planets  proceed  in  their 
course  from  inward  powers  by  virtue  of  their  inertia  and  gravitation. 
The  world,  therefore,  requires  no  one  outside  itself  for  its  subsistence, 
for  it  is  Vishnu ;  but  to  say  that  this  world  in  time  with  all  its  indwell¬ 
ing  forces  has  not  always  been,  but  has  been  produced  from  nothing 
by  a  foreign  power  existing  outside  it,  is  a  wholly  superfluous  supposi¬ 
tion  which  nothing  can  confirm,  more  particularly  as  all  its  forces  are 
bound  up  with  matter,  the  origination  and  destruction  of  which  we 
cannot  even  so  much  as  think.  This  conception  of  the  world  reaches 
back  to  Spinozism.  That  men  in  their  uttermost  need  have  every¬ 
where  conceived  beings  which  control  the  forces  of  nature  and  their 
course,  in  order  to  appeal  to  such,  is  perfectly  natural.  Greeks  and 
Romans,  however,  were  content  to  leave  the  matter  with  the  control  of 
its  own  sphere  by  each  divinity ;  it  never  occurred  to  them  to  assert  that 
any  one  of  them  had  made  the  world  and  the  forces  of  nature. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


209 


primarily  powerful,  knowingless,  and,  therefore,  infallibly 
certain  action  of  the  will,  it  explains  it  as  something 
merely  secondary,  only  produced  by  the  light  of  knowl¬ 
edge  and  the  clue  of  motives;  and,  accordingly,  it  con¬ 
ceives  that  which  has  been  produced  from  within 
outward  as  something  becarpentered,  bemodeled,  and 
molded  from  the  outside.  For  if  the  Will,  as  thing-in- 
itself,  which  is  not  in  any  sense  Presentment,  emerges 
in  the  act  of  its  objectivation  from  its  originality  into 
Presentment,  and  we  assume  that  what  displays  itself 
in  this  presentment  is  something  brought  about  in  the 
world  of  presentment  itself;  in  other  words,  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  knowledge,  then,  certainly,  it  appears  only  pos¬ 
sible  by  means  of  an  immeasurably  perfect  knowledge,  a 
knowledge  which  comprehends  at  once  all  objects  and 
their  connection, — in  short,  as  a  work  of  the  highest  wis¬ 
dom.  As  to  this  point  I  refer  the  reader  to  my  treatise 
on  “Will  in  Nature, ®  especially  pp.  43-62  of  the  1st  ed. 
(pp.  35-54  2d  ed.,  pp.  37-58  3d  ed.),  under  the  heading 
“Comparative  Anatomy,  *  and  to  my  chief  work,  vol.  ii., 
beginning  of  cap.  26. 

The  second  theological  demonstration,  the  ontological, 
as  stated,  does  not  take  the  law  of  causality,  but  the 
principle  of  the  ground  of  knowledge  as  its  clue,  whereby 
the  necessity  of  the  existence  of  God  becomes  here  a 
logical  one.  It  is  sought  here,  namely,  to  deduce  the 
existence  from  the  conception  of  God  by  a  mere  analyt¬ 
ical  judgment,  in  such  wise  that  it  is  not  possible  to 
make  this  conception  the  subject  of  a  proposition  in 
which  this  existence  is  denied,  by  making  such  denial 
contradict  the  subject  of  the  proposition.  This  is  logically 
correct,  but  is  also  a  very  obvious  and  only  too  trans¬ 
parent  conjuror’s  trick.  After  having,  by  using  the  con¬ 
cept  “  perfection  ®  or  <(  reality  w  as  a  handle  to  be  employed 
as  terminus  medius ,  the  predicate  of  existence  is  intro¬ 
duced  into  the  subject,  it  cannot  fail  that  it  is  afterward 
found  there  again,  and  is  exposed  by  means  of  an 
analytical  judgment.  But  the  justification  for  establish¬ 
ing  the  whole  concept  is  in  nowise  proved  thereby;  on 
the  contrary,  it  is  either  excogitated  in  a  purely  arbitrary 
manner,  or  introduced  through  the  cosmological  demon- 
14 


210 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


stration  according  to  which  everything  turns  on  purely 
physical  necessity.  Christian  Wolff  seems,  indeed,  to  have 
seen  this,  for  in  his  metaphysics  he  has  only  made  use 
of  the  cosmological  argument,  and  expressly  takes  note  of 
the  fact.  The  ontological  demonstration  will  be  found 
carefully  investigated  and  estimated  in  the  second  and 
third  edition  of  my  treatise  on  the  <(  Fourfold  Root  of 
the  Principle  of  Adequate  Cause,®  §  7,  and  to  this  I 
refer  the  reader. 

The  two  theological  demonstrations  mutually  support 
each  other,  but  cannot  stand  any  the  more  on  that 
account.  The  cosmological  has  the  advantage  that  it 
takes  account  how  it  has  come  by  the  conception  of  a 
God,  and  by  its  adjunct  the  physico-theological  demon¬ 
stration  seeks  to  make  this  demonstration  probable. 
The  ontological,  on  the  other  hand,  is  quite  unable  to 
prove  how  it  has  come  by  its  conception  of  the  most 
real  of  all  essences,  and,  in  consequence,  either  alleges 
it  to  be  innate  or  borrows  it  from  the  cosmological 
demonstration,  and  seeks  to  uphold  it  by  imposing- 
sounding  talk  of  the  Being  which  cannot  be  thought  of 
except  as  existing,  whose  existence  lies  already  in  its  con¬ 
ception,  etc. 

In  the  meantime,  we  shall  not  deny  the  merit  of  acute¬ 
ness  and  subtlety  to  the  invention  of  the  ontological 
demonstration  if  we  consider  the  following.  In  order  to 
explain  a  given  existence,  we  point  to  its  cause,  in  respect 
of  which  it  then  appears  as  something  necessary,  and 
this  serves  as  its  explanation.  But  this  way  leads,  as 
already  sufficiently  shown,  to  a  (<  regressus  in  infinitum ,® 
and  can  never,  therefore,  attain  the  something  final 
which  would  furnish  a  fundamental  ground  of  explana¬ 
tion.  The  case  would  be  otherwise  if  the  existence  of 
any  being  could  be  really  deduced  from  its  essence,  that 
is,  from  its  mere  concept  or  definition.  For  then,  indeed, 
it  would  be  known  as  something  necessary  (by  which 
here,  as  elsewhere,  is  only  meant  that  ®  which  follows 
from  its  cause  *)  without  thereby  being  bound  to  any¬ 
thing  other  than  its  own  concept, —  in  other  words,  with¬ 
out  its  necessity  being  merely  transitory  and  momentary, 
itself  being  again  conditioned,  and  so  on,  leading  to  an 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


21  I 


infinite  series  as  is  always  the  case  with  causal  neces¬ 
sity.  The  mere  ground  of  knowledge  would  then  have 
transformed  itself  into  a  ground  of  reality,  that  is,  into 
a  cause,  thereby  excellently  qualifying  itself  to  serve  as 
the  final,  and  hence  certain,  point  of  attachment  for  all 
causal  series,  in  which  case  we  should  have  what  we 
sought. 

But  we  have  seen  above  that  all  this  is  illusory,  and 
it  looks  as  if  Aristotle  himself  had  been  desirous  of 
avoiding  such  a  sophistication  when  he  said,  r<5  de  elvat 
om  odff'ia  obaia  obdivt ,  ad  nullius  rei  essentiam  pertinet  ex¬ 
ist  entia  (Analyt.  post.  ii.  7). 

Without  troubling  himself  about  this,  Descartes,  follow¬ 
ing  Anselm  of  Canterbury,  who  had  already  led  the  way 
to  a  similar  line  of  thought,  posited  the  conception  of 
God  as  one  which  fulfilled  the  requirement, —  Spinoza, 
however,  that  of  the  world  as  the  only  existing  substance 
which  could  be  causa  sui ,  i.  e.,  qua  per  se  est  et  per  se  concipi- 
tur  quamobrem  nulla  alia  re  eget  ad  exist endum,  conferring 
on  the  world  so  established  the  title  God,  honoris  causa , 
in  order  to  satisfy  everyone.  But  it  is  always  the  same 
tour  de  passe-passe ,  which  endeavors  to  palm  off  the 
logically  necessary  as  a  real  necessary,  and  which,  to¬ 
gether  with  other  similar  deceptions,  at  last  gave  occasion 
to  Locke’s  great  investigation  into  the  origin  of  concepts, 
with  which  the  foundation  of  the  critical  philosophy  was 
laid.  A  more  detailed  exposition  of  the  procedure  of 
both  dogmatists  is  contained  in  my  treatise  on  the  (<  Prin¬ 
ciple  of  Cause,  n  2nd  and  3rd  ed.,  §  §  7  and  8. 

After  Kant  by  his  critique  of  speculative  theology  had 
given  the  latter  its  death  blow,  *  he  had  to  seek  to  mod¬ 
ify  the  impression  produced  by  this,  and  to  apply,  as  it 
were,  a  soothing  medicine  or  anodyne;  the  procedure  of 
Hume  was  analagous,  who  in  the  last  of  his,  as  readable 
as  irrefutable,  <(  Dialogues  on  Natural  Religion,  w  ex¬ 
plains  to  us  that  the  whole  thing  has  merely  been  a 
joke,  an  exercitium  logicum.  In  the  same  way  Kant  gave 
as  substitute  for  the  demonstration  for  the  existence  of 
God,  his  postulate  of  the  practical  reason,  and  the  moral 

*  Kant  discovered,  namely,  the  alarming  truth  that  philosophy 
must  be  something  other  than  Jewish  mythology. 


212 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


theology  arising  therefrom  which  without  any  claim  to 
objective  validity,  so  far  as  knowledge  or  the  theoretical 
reason  was  concerned,  should  have  complete  validity  in 
respect  of  conduct,  or  for  the  practical  reason,  whereby 
a  belief  without  knowledge  might  be  founded  —  so  that 
at  all  events  people  should  have  something  in  hand. 
His  exposition  properly  understood,  says  nothing  else 
than  that  the  assumption  of  a  just  God  rewarding  and 
punishing  after  death  is  a  useful  and  sufficient  regulative 
scheme  for  the  explanation  of  the  serious  ethical  signifi¬ 
cance  felt  to  belong  to  our  conduct,  as  also  for  the  regulation 
of  this  conduct  itself.  He  set  up,  as  it  were,  an  allegory 
of  the  truth,  so  that  in  this  respect,  which  alone  has 
any  significance  in  the  last  resort,  his  assumption  might 
take  the  place  of  the  truth,  even  though  theoretically  or 
objectively  it  was  not  to  be  justified.  An  analogous 
scheme  of  similar  tendency,  but  of  much  greater  valid¬ 
ity,  stronger  plausibility,  and  consequently  more  imme¬ 
diate  worth,  is  the  dogma  of  Brahminism  of  a  rewarding 
or  punishing  Metempsychosis,  according  to  which  we 
must  at  some  time  be  reborn  in  the  form  of  every  being 
that  has  been  injured  by  us,  in  order  to  suffer  the  same 
injury.  Kant’s  moral  theology  must  be  taken  in  the 
sense  indicated,  remembering  at  the  same  time  that  he  him¬ 
self  dare  not  express  himself  so  plainly  as  is  here  done  on 
the  real  state  of  affairs,  but  in  setting  up  the  monstros¬ 
ity  of  a  theoretical  doctrine  of  merely  practical  validity 
reckoned  on  the  granum  salis  of  the  wiser  sort.  The 
theological  and  theosophical  writers  of  a  later  time  far 
removed  from  the  Kantian  philosophy,  have  endeavored 
for  the  most  part  to  give  the  matter  the  appearance  as 
though  Kant’s  moral  theology  were  a  real  dogmatic 
Theism,  a  new  proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  Yet  it  is 
not  so  by  any  means,  but  is  only  valid  inside  the  moral 
sphere,  merely  for  the  assistance  of  morality,  and  not 
a  straw’s  breadth  further. 

Not  even  the  professors  of  philosophy  allowed  them¬ 
selves  to  be  satisfied  with  this  for  long,  although  they 
were  placed  in  conspicuous  embarrassment  by  Kant’s 
critique  of  speculative  theology,  for  they  had  from  of  old 
recognized  it  as  their  special  calling  to  demonstrate  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


313 


existence  and  attributes  of  God,  and  to  make  Him  the 
chief  subject  of  their  philosophizing.  When,  therefore, 
Scripture  teaches  that  God  nourishes  the  ravens  in  the 
field,  I  must  also  add,  and  the  professors  of  philosophy- 
in  their  chairs.  Even  nowadays,  they  assert  with  per¬ 
fect  coolness  that  the  Absolute  (well-known  as  the  new¬ 
fangled  title  for  God)  and  its  relation  to  the  world  is 
the  proper  subject  of  philosophy,  and  to  define  this  more 
closely,  and  to  paint  it  with  their  imagination,  exercises 
them  now  as  before,  for  assuredly  the  governments  which 
provide  money  for  such  philosophizing  desire  to  see  good 
Christians  and  zealous  Church-goers  come  out  of  the 
philosophical  class-rooms.  How  must  it  then  have  suited 
these  gentlemen  of  the  lucrative  philosophy  when  Kant 
upset  the  concept  by  the  proof  that  all  demonstrations 
of  speculative  theology  are  untenable,  and  that  all  cog¬ 
nitions  concerning  their  chosen  theme  were  simply  im¬ 
possible  for  our  intellect  ?  At  first  they  tried  to  help 
themselves  by  their  well-known  method  of  ignoring,  and 
afterward  by  contesting,  but  this  did  not  answer  in  the 
long  run.  They  next  threw  themselves  upon  the  asser¬ 
tion  that  the  existence  of  God  was  indeed  incapable  of 
any  demonstration,  but  that  it  did  not  require  any ;  for  it 
was  obvious,  indeed  the  most  established  fact  of  the 
world,  which  we  could  not  doubt  since  we  had  a  <(  divine 
consciousness  ®  within  us,  our  reason  being  the  organ  for 
the  immediate  knowledge  of  supernatural  things,  and  our 
instruction  on  this  point  being  derived  immediately  from 
it,  whence  it  was  therefore  called  Reason!  (I  earnestly 
beg  the  reader  to  consult  respecting  this  my  treatise  on 
the  (<  Principle  of  Cause,®  2d  and  3d  ed.,  §  34,  as 
also  my  (<  Fundamental  Problems  of  Ethics,®  pp.  148-154, 
finally  also  my  (<  Criticism  of  the  Kantian  Philosophy,  ® 
2d  ed.,  pp.  584-584,  3d.  ed.,  pp.  617-618.) 

As  regards  the  genesis  of  this  divine  consciousness  we 
have  recently  received  a  remarkable  pictorial  illustration, 
to  wit,  an  engraving  displaying  a  mother  placing  her  three- 
year-old  child  with  folded  hands  and  in  a  kneeling  position 
against  the  bed,  for  the  purpose  of  praying,  certainly  a 
frequent  occurrence  constituting  the  genesis  of  the  divine 
consciousness.  For  it  is  not  doubtful  that  when  the  brain 


214 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


in  the  earliest  stages  of  its  growth,  and  at  the  tenderest 
age  is  so  molded,  the  <(  divine  consciousness  w  will  grow  as 
firmly  imbedded  in  it  as  though  it  were  really  inborn. 
According  to  others  the  reason  merely  furnishes  sugges¬ 
tions,  while  others  again  possess  intellectual  intuitions. 
There  were,  still  further,  those  who  invented  Absolute 
Thought,  i.  e.}  a  Thought  by  which  man  did  not  require 
to  look  around  him  at  the  things,  but  which  determined 
in  Divine  Omniscience  how  they  were  to  be  once  for  all. 
This  is  undoubtedly  the  most  convenient  of  all  the  fore¬ 
going  inventions.  They  one  and  all  seized  upon  the  word 
(<  absolute  n  which  is  nothing  but  the  cosmological  demon¬ 
stration  in  7iuce ,  or  rather  so  strongly  compressed  that  it 
has  become  microscopic  and  invisible,  and  thus  is  allowed 
to  pass  unnoticed,  and  as  such  is  proclaimed  as  something 
requiring  no  explanation.  For  in  its  true  form  it  dare  no 
longer  show  itself  after  the  Kantian  examen  rigor osurn  — 
as  I  have  already  shown  at  greater  length  in  the  2d 
edition  of  my  treatise  on  <(  The  Principle  of  Cause, w  p. 
36  (3d  ed.,  p.  37),  and  also  in  my  criticism  of  the  Kantian 
philosophy,  2d.  ed.,  p.  544  (3d  ed.,  p.  574).  I  do  not 
know  who  was  the  first  who  fifty  years  ago  made  use  of 
the  trick  of  smuggling  in  under  this  comprehensive  word 
Absolute  the  exploded  and  proscribed  cosmological  dem¬ 
onstration,  incognito ,  but  the  dodge  was  well  suited  to 
the  capacities  of  the  public,  for  up  to  this  day  the  word 
<(  absolute  ®  passes  current  as  true  coin. 

In  short,  in  spite  of  the  critique  of  the  reason  and  its 
demonstrations,  the  professors  of  philosophy  have  never 
failed  in  authentic  accounts  of  the  existence  of  God  and 
his  relation  to  the  world  in  the  detailed  exposition  of 
which  in  their  eyes  philosophy  properly  consists.  But  in 
the  words  of  the  proverb,  (<  copper  money,  copper  wares ;  * 
this  God  requiring  no  explanation  of  theirs  has  neither  hand 
nor  foot;  and  for  this  reason  they  keep  him  hidden  be¬ 
hind  a  mountain,  or  rather  behind  a  noisy  edifice  of  words, 
so  that  scarcely  a  sign  of  him  is  visible.  If  one  could 
only  compel  them  to  explain  themselves  clearly  as  to  what 
is  to  be  understood  by  the  word  God  we  should  be  able 
to  see  whether  it  required  no  explanation.  Not  even  a 
natura  naturans  (into  which  their  God  often  appears  to 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


215 


pass)  requires  no  explanation  since  we  find  Leukippus, 
Demokritos,  Epikurus,  and  Lukretius  constructed  a  world 
without  any  such;  and  these  men,  with  all  their  errors, 
were  worth  a  great  deal  more  than  a  legion  of  weather¬ 
cocks  whose  trade-philosophy  turns  round  with  the  wind. 
But  a  natura  naturans  is  a  long  way  from  being  God. 
In  the  conception  of  such  the  truth  is  merely  contained 
that  behind  the  ever-fleeting  and  restlessly  changing 
phenomena  of  the  natura  naturata  an  imperishable  and 
untiring  force  must  lie  hidden  by  virtue  of  which  the 
former  is  continually  renewing  itself,  since  it  remains  un¬ 
touched  by  the  dissolution  of  things.  As  the  natura 
naturata  is  the  subject  of  physics,  so  is  the  natura  natu¬ 
rans  that  of  metaphysics.  This  shows  us  that  we  ourselves 
ultimately  belong  to  nature,  and  consequently,  know  less 
of  natura  naturata  than  of  natura  naturans  —  that  we  are 
the  nearest  and  the  clearest,  and  indeed  that  we  possess  in 
ourselves  the  only  specimen  of  it  to  which  access  can  be 
obtained  from  within.  Now  inasmuch  as  a  serious  and 
exact  reflection  upon  ourselves  discloses  the  Will  as  the 
core  of  our  being,  we  have  in  this  an  immediate  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  natura  naturans ,  which  we  are  accordingly 
justified  in  transferring  to  all  other  beings  which  are  only 
one-sidedly  known  to  us.  We  attain  thereby  to  the  great 
truth  that  the  natura  naturans ,  or  the  thing-in-itself  is 
the  Will  in  our  own  heart,  while  the  natura  naturata ,  or 
the  phenomenon,  is  the  presentment  in  our  head.  But 
even  apart  from  this  result  it  is  sufficiently  obvious  that 
the  mere  distinguishing  of  a  natura  naturans  and  a  natura 
naturata  is  not  only  not  Theism,  but  is  not  even  Pan¬ 
theism;  for  even  to  the  latter,  if  it  is  not  to  be  a  mere 
manner  of  speaking,  the  addition  of  certain  moral  quali¬ 
ties  is  necessary,  which  clearly  do  not  accrue  to  the 
world,  e.g.,  goodness,  wisdom,  blessedness,  etc. 

For  the  rest,  Pantheism  is  a  conception  which  destroys 
itself,  for  the  conception  of  a  God  presupposes  as  its  es¬ 
sential  correlate  that  of  a  world  distinct  from  him.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  world  takes .  over  his  role,  there 
remains  an  absolute  world  without  God,  and  hence  Pan¬ 
theism  is  only  a  euphemism  for  Atheism.  But  this  last 
expression  in  its  turn  also  contains  a  subreption,  since  it 


2l6 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


assumes  at  the  outset  that  Theism  requires  no  explana¬ 
tion,  whereby  it  dexterously  evades  the  ajfirinanti  incumbit 
probatio ,  while  it  is  rather  the  so-called  Atheism  that  has 
the  just  primi  occupantis ,  and  has  therefore  to  be  first 
driven  out  of  the  field  by  Theism.  I  allow  myself  here 
the  observation  that  men  came  into  the  world  uncircum¬ 
cised,  and  therefore  not  as  Jews.  But  even  the  assump¬ 
tion  of  some  cause  of  the  world  distinct  therefrom  is  not 
Theism.  Theism  requires  not  only  a  cause  distinct  from 
the  world,  but  an  intelligent,  a  knowing  and  willing,  that 
is  a  personal,  in  short,  an  individual  cause ;  such  a  cause 
alone  does  the  word  God  connote. 

An  impersonal  God  is  no  God  at  all,  but  merely  a 
misapplied  word,  a  misconception,  a  contradicfion  in  ad- 
jecto ,  a  shibboleth  for  professors  of  philosophy  who,  after 
having  given  up  the  thing,  are  anxious  to  smuggle  in  the 
word.  The  personality,  on  the  contrary,  that  is,  the  self- 
conscious  individuality  which  first  knows,  and  then  in 
accordance  with  the  knowledge  wills,  is  a  phenomenon 
known  to  us  solely  from  the  animal  nature  which  is 
present  on  our  small  planet,  and  is  so  intimately  con¬ 
nected  with  this  that  we  are  not  only  not  justified  in 
thinking  it  as  separate  and  independent,  but  are  not  even 
capable  of  doing  so.  But  to  assume  a  being  of  such  a 
kind,  as  the  origin  of  nature  herself  and  of  all  existence 
is  a  colossal  and  daring  conception  which  would  startle 
us  if  we  heard  it  for  the  first  time,  and  if  it  had  not  by 
dint  of  earliest  teaching  and  continuous  repetition  be¬ 
come  familiar  to  us  as  a  second  nature,  I  might  also  say 
a  fixed  idea.  Hence  I  may  observe,  by  the  way,  that 
nothing  has  so  well  accredited  to  me  the  genuineness  of 
Casper  Hauser  as  the  statement  that  the  so-called  natural 
theology  which  was  expounded  to  him  did  not  seem  to 
enlighten  him  as  much  as  was  expected.  To  which  may 
be  added  that  he  (according  to  the  (<  Letters  of  Count 
Stanhope  to  the  Schoolmaster  Meyer  * )  exhibited  an  ex¬ 
traordinary  reverence  for  the  sun.  But  to  teach  in  phi¬ 
losophy  that  this  theological  notion  requires  no  explanation, 
and  that  the  reason  is  only  the  capacity  immediately  to 
comprehend  the  same  and  recognize  it  as  true,  is  a  shame¬ 
less  proceeding.  Not  only  has  philosophy  no  right  to 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


217 


assume  such  a  conception  without  the  fullest  demonstra¬ 
tion,  but  it  is  by  no  means  essential  even  to  religion. 
This  is  attested  by  the  religion  which  counts  the  largest 
number  of  adherents  on  earth,  the  ancient,  highly  moral,  in¬ 
deed  ascetic  Buddhism, —  whose  adherents  now  number 
three  hundred  and  seventy  millions, —  a  religion  which  also 
maintains  the  most  numerous  body  of  clergy  of  any  — 
inasmuch  as  it  does  not  admit  such  a  conception,  but 
rather  expressly  stigmatizes  it,  and  is  thus  ex  professo , 
according  to  our  notions,  atheistic.* 

According  to  the  foregoing,  Anthropomorphism  is  an 
essential  characteristic  of  Theism,  and  it  is  expressed 
not  merely  in  the  human  form  nor  even  in  human  affec¬ 
tions  and  passions,  but  in  the  fundamental  phenomenon 
itself,  to  wit,  in  the  one  will  furnished  with  an  intellect 
for  its  guidance,  which  phenomenon,  as  already  said,  is 
known  to  us  only  in  animal  nature  and  most  perfectly  in 
human  nature,  which  is  only  thinkable  as  Individuality, 
and  which  when  it  is  endowed  with  reason  is  called 

♦The  Zaradobura,  the  high  priest  of  the  Buddhists  in  Ara,  in  a 
treatise  on  his  religion  which  he  gave  to  a  Catholic  Bishop,  reckons 
among  the  six  damnable  heresies  the  doctrine  that  a  Being  exists 
who  has  created  the  world  and  all  things  in  the  world,  and  who  is 
alone  worthy  of  worship.  (<(  Francis  Buchanan  on  the  Religion  of 
the  Burmas,®  in  « Asiatic  Researches,®  vol.  vi. ,  p.  26S.)  It  is  men¬ 
tioned  in  the  same  series,  vol.  xv.,  p.  148,  viz,  that  the  Bud¬ 
dhists  bow  their  heads  before  no  idol,  giving  as  their  reason  that  the 
Primal  Being  interpenetrates  all  nature  and  consequently  is  also  in 
their  heads.  Similarly  the  learned  Orientalist  and  member  of  the 
St.  Petersburg  Academy,  J.  J.  Schmidt,  in  his  « Researches  in  the 
Domain  of  the  Ancient  History  of  Central  Asiatic  Culture®  (Peters¬ 
burg,  1848),  p.  180,  says:  <(The  system  of  Buddhism  knows  no  eternal 
uncreated  single  divine  being  existent  before  all  time,  and  who  created 
all  things  visible  and  invisible.  This  idea  is  quite  foreign  to  it,  and 
there  is  not  the  slightest  trace  of  it  to  be  found  in  the  Buddhist  books. 
Just  as  little  is  there  a  creation.®  Where,  then,  is  the  <( divine  con¬ 
sciousness®  of  Kant  and  those  professors  of  philosophy  who  pervert 
the  truth  ?  How  is  it  to  be  explained  that  the  language  of  the  Chinese, 
who  constitute  about  two-fifths  of  the  whole  human  race,  has  no  expres¬ 
sions  for  God  and  creation  ?  For  this  reason  the  first  verse  of  the 
Pentateuch  could  not  be  translated  into  Chinese  to  the  great  perplexity 
of  the  missionaries  whom  Sir  George  Staunton  tried  to  assist  by  means 
of  a  book  which  he  entitled,  <(An  inquiry  into  the  proper  mode  of 
rendering  the  word  < God >  in  translating  the  Sacred  Scriptures  into  the 
Chinese  language.  ®  London,  1848. 


2l8 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


Personality.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  expression,  <(  as 
truly  as  God  lives” ;  He  is  indeed  a  living-  being,  that  is, 
one  willing  with  knowledge.  Hence  a  God  requires  a 
heaven  in  which  he  is  enthroned  and  whence  he  governs. 
Much  more  on  this  account  than  because  of  the  expres¬ 
sion  in  the  Book  of  Joshua  was  the  Kopernican  system 
at  once  received  with  distrust  by  the  Church,  and  we 
find  accordingly  a  hundred  years  later  Giordano  Bruno 
as  the  champion  at  once  of  this  system  and  of  Pantheism. 
The  attempts  to  purify  Theism  from  Anthropomorphism, 
notwithstanding  that  they  are  only  meant  to  touch  the 
shell,  really  strike  at  the  innermost  core.  In  their 
endeavor  to  conceive  its  object  abstractly  they  sublimate 
it  to  a  dim  cloud-shape  whose  outline  gradually  disap¬ 
pears  entirely  in  the  effort  to  avoid  the  human  figure;  so 
that  at  last  the  whole  childish  idea  becomes  attenuated 
to  nothing.  But  besides  all  this  the  rationalistic  theo¬ 
logians,  who  are  especially  fond  of  these  attempts,  may 
be  reproached  with  contradicting  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
which  say,  <(  God  created  man  in  his  own  image ;  in  the 
image  of  God  created  he  him.”  Let  us  then  away  with 
the  jargon  of  the  professors  of  philosophy!  There  is  no 
other  God  than  God,  and  the  Old  Testament  is  his 
revelation  —  especially  the  Book  of  Joshua.  From  the  God 
who  was  originally  Jehovah,  philosophers  and  theologians 
have  stripped  off  one  coating  after  the  other,  until  at  last 
nothing  but  the  word  is  left. 

One  might  certainly,  with  Kant,  call  Theism  a  practical 
postulate,  although  in  quite  another  sense  to  that  which 
he  meant  it.  Theism  is  indeed  no  product  of  the  Under¬ 
standing  but  of  the  Will.  If  it  were  originally  theoretical, 
how  could  all  its  proofs  be  so  untenable  ?  But  it  arises 
from  the  Will  in  the  following  manner:  the  continual 
need  with  which  the  heart  (Will)  of  man  is  now  heavily 
oppressed,  now  violently  moved,  and  which  keeps  him 
perpetually  in  a  state  of  fear  and  hope,  while  the  things 
of  which  he  hopes  and  fears  are  not  in  his  power — the 
very  connection  of  the  chain  of  causes  which  produce 
them  only  being  traceable  for  a  short  distance  by  his 
intelligence  —  this  need,  this  constant  fear  and  hope, 
causes  him  to  frame  the  hypothesis  of  personal  beings 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


219 


on  whom  everything  depends.  It  is  assumed  of  such 
that  they,  like  other  persons,  are  susceptible  to  request 
and  flattery,  service  and  gift  —  in  other  words,  that  they 
are  more  tractable  than  the  iron  Necessity,  the  unbend¬ 
ing,  the  unfeeling  forces  of  nature,  and  the  mysterious 
powers  of  the  world-order.  At  first,  as  is  natural,  and 
as  was  very  logically  carried  out  by  the  ancients,  these 
Gods  were  many,  according  to  diversity  of  circumstances. 
Later  on,  owing  to  the  necessity  of  bringing  sequence, 
order,  and  unity  into  knowledge,  these  Gods  were  sub¬ 
ordinated  to  one,  which,  as  Goethe  once  remarked  to  me, 
is  very  undramatic,  since  with  a  solitary  person  one  can  do 
nothing.  The  essential,  however,  is  the  impulse  of  anxious 
humanity  to  throw  itself  down  and  pray  for  help  in  its 
frequent,  bitter,  and  great  distress  and  also  in  its  concern 
for  its  eternal  happiness.  Man  relies  rather  on  external 
grace  than  on  his  own  merit.  This  is  one  of  the  chief 
supports  of  Theism.  In  order  therefore  that  his  heart 
(  Will )  may  have  the  relief  of  prayer  and  the  consolation  of 
hope,  his  intellect  must  create  a  God ;  and  not  conversely, 
because  his  intellect  has  deduced  a  God,  does  he  pray.  Let 
him  be  left  without  needs,  wishes,  and  requirements,  a 
mere  intellectual  will-less  being,  and  he  requires  no  God 
and  makes  none.  The  heart,  that  is  the  Will,  has  in  its 
bitter  distress  the  need  to  call  for  almighty  and  conse¬ 
quently  supernatural  assistance.  Hence,  because  a  God  is 
wanted  to  be  prayed  to  he  is  hypostatized,  and  not  con¬ 
versely.  For  this  reason  the  theoretical  side  of  the  theology 
of  all  nations  is  very  different  as  to  the  number  and 
character  of  their  gods;  but  that  they  can  and  do  help 
when  they  are  served  and  prayed  to,  thus  much  is  common 
to  them  all,  since  it  is  the  point  upon  which  everything 
depends.  It  is  at  the  same  time  the  birthmark  by  which 
the  descent  of  all  theology  is  recognizable,  to  wit,  that 
it  proceeds  from  the  Will,  from  the  heart,  and  not  from 
the  head  or  the  intelligence,  as  is  pretended.  This  is 
implied  also  in  that  the  true  reason  why  Constantine  the 
Great,  as  also  Chlodowig,  the  king  of  the  Franks, 
changed  their  religion,  was  that  they  hoped  from  their 
new  god  better  support  in  war.  There  are  some  few 
races  which,  preferring  the  minor  to  the  major,  instead 


220 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


of  gods  possess  mere  spirits,  who  are  prevented  from 
doing  harm  by  sacrifice  and  prayer.  But  the  final  result 
shows  no  great  difference.  The  original  inhabitants  of 
the  Indian  peninsula  and  Ceylon,  before  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  Brahminism  and  Buddhism,  appear  to  have 
been  such  races,  and  their  descendants  would  seem  to 
have  in  part  even  now  a  similar  cacodaemonological  re¬ 
ligion,  like  many  other  savage  peoples.  From  this  source 
springs  the  Kappuism  which  is  mixed  with  the  Cingha- 
lese  religion,  Buddhism.  In  the  same  way  the  devil 
worshippers  of  Mesopotamia,  visited  by  Layard,  seem 
to  belong  to  this  category.  Intimately  connected  with 
the  true  origin  of  all  Theism,  as  here  expounded,  and 
equally  proceeding  from  the  nature  of  man,  is  the  im¬ 
pulse  to  bring  sacrifices  to  his  gods  in  order  to  purchase 
their  favor,  or  if  they  have  already  shown  such,  to  en¬ 
sure  its  continuance  or  to  buy  off  evils  from  them. 
((<  Sanchoniathonis  Fragmenta,®  ed.  Orelli,  Lips.,  1826,  p. 
42.)  This  is  the  meaning  of  every  sacrifice,  and  hence 
the  origin  and  support  of  every  god;  so  that  it  may  be 
said  with  truth  the  gods  live  upon  sacrifice.  For  pre¬ 
cisely  because  the  impulse  to  appeal  to  and  to  purchase  the 
assistance  of  supernatural  beings  as  the  child  of  need  and 
intellectual  limitation,  is  natural  to  man,  for  its  satisfac¬ 
tion  and  requirement  he  creates  God  for  himself.  Hence 
the  universality  of  sacrifice  in  all  ages  and  with  the  most 
diverse  races,  and  its  identity  amid  the  greatest  differ¬ 
ence  of  circumstance  and  of  intellectual  development. 
Thus,  for  example,  Herodotus  relates  that  a  ship  from 
Samos,  through  the  exceptionally  advantageous  sale  of  its 
cargo  in  Tartessus,  had  acquired  an  unprecedented  fortune, 
whereupon  the  Samians  expended  the  tenth  part  of  it  to 
the  amount  of  six  talents  on  a  large  brazen  and  artistically 
worked  vase,  which  they  presented  in  the  Temple  of  Here. 
And  as  a  counterpart  to  these  Greeks,  we  see  in  our  days  the 
miserable  nomad  reindeer  Lapp,  with  figure  shrunk  to  the 
dimensions  of  a  dwarf,  hiding  his  spare  money  in  various 
secret  recesses  of  the  rocks  and  glens,  which  he  makes  known 
to  no  one  except  it  be  in  his  dying  hour  to  his  heir,  and 
even  to  him  there  is  one  such  hiding  place  which  he 
never  reveals  —  that  namely  wherein  he  has  secreted  a 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


221 


treasure  brought  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  genius  loci ,  the  pro¬ 
tecting  God  of  his  territory  ( S.  Albrecht  Pancritius 
Hagringar,  (<  Reise  durch  Schweden,  Lappland,  Norwegen, 
und  Danemark  im  Jahre  1850,”  Konigsberg,  1852,  p.  162). 
The  belief  in  gods  thus  has  its  root  in  egoism.  In  Chris¬ 
tianity  alone  has  the  sacrifice  proper  disappeared,  although 
in  the  form  of  masses  for  souls,  of  cloister,  church,  and 
chapel  building,  it  is  still  there.  For  the  rest,  and  espe¬ 
cially  with  Protestants,  praise  and  thanksgiving  have  to 
serve  as  the  surrogate  of  sacrifice,  and  hence  they  are 
carried  to  the  extremest  superlative  even  on  occasions 
which  to  the  outsider  seem  little  suited  thereto  —  a  pro¬ 
ceeding  analogous  to  that  of  the  State  which  also  does 
not  always  reward  merit  with  gifts,  but  sometimes  with 
mere  testimonials  of  honor,  thereby  maintaining  its  con¬ 
tinuance.  In  this  respect  what  the  great  David  Hume 
says  deserves  to  be  recalled:  (< Whether  this  god,  there¬ 
fore,  be  considered  as  their  peculiar  patron,  or  as  the 
general  sovereign  of  heaven,  his  votaries  will  endeavor 
by  every  art  to  insinuate  themselves  into  his  favor ;  and 
supposing  him  to  be  pleased,  like  themselves,  with  praise 
and  flattery,  there  is  no  eulogy  or  exaggeration  which 
will  be  spared  in  their  addresses  to  him.  In  proportion 
as  men’s  fears  or  distresses  become  more  urgent,  they 
will  invent  new  strains  of  adulation;  and  even  he 
who  outdoes  his  predecessors  in  swelling  up  the  titles  of 
his  divinity,  is  sure  to  be  outdone  by  his  successors  in 
newer  and  more  pompous  epithets  of  praise.  Thus  they 
proceed,  till  at  last  they  arrive  at  infinity  itself,  beyond 
which  there  is  no  farther  progress.  *  ( <(  Essays  and 

Treatises  on  Several  Subjects, w  London,  1777 ,  vol,  ii. , 
p.  429.)  And  again:  (<  It  appears  certain  that,  though 
the  original  notions  of  the  vulgar  represent  the  divinity 
as  a  limited  being,  and  consider  him  only  as  the  partic¬ 
ular  cause  of  health  or  sickness,  plenty  or  want,  pros¬ 
perity  or  adversity,  yet  when  more  magnificent  ideas 
are  urged  upon  them,  they  esteem  it  dangerous  to 
refuse  their  assent.  Will  you  say  that  your  deity  is 
finite  and  bounded  in  his  perfection;  may  be  overcome 
by  a  greater  force;  is  subject  to  human  passions,  pains, 
and  infirmities ;  has  a  beginning,  and  may  have  an  end  ? 


222 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


This  they  dare  not  affirm,  but  thinking  it  safest  to 

COMPLY  WITH  THE  HIGHER  ENCONIUMS,  THEY  ENDEAVOR,  BY 
AN  AFFECTED  RAVISHMENT  AND  DEVOTION,  TO  INGRATIATE 

themselves  with  him.  As  a  confirmation  of  this  we  may 
observe  that  the  assent  of  the  vulgar  is,  in  this  case, 
merely  verbal,  and  that  they  are  incapable  of  conceiving 
those  sublime  qualities  which  they  seemingly  attribute  to 
the  Deity.  Their  real  idea  of  him,  notwithstanding  their 
pompous  language,  is  still  as  poor  and  frivolous  as  ever.” 
{Ibid.,  p.  432.) 

In  order  to  mitigate  the  heterodoxy  of  his  <(  Critique  of 
all  Speculative  Theology,”  Kant  added  thereto  not  only 
moral  theology,  but  also  the  assurance  that  even  though 
the  existence  of  God  had  to  remain  unproven,  it  would 
be  just  as  impossible  to  prove  the  opposite,  an  assurance 
with  which  many  have  consoled  themselves,  without  ob¬ 
serving  that  he,  with  pretended  simplicity,  ignored  the 
affirmanti  incumbit  probatio ,  as  also  that  the  number  of 
things  whose  existence  cannot  be  proved  is  infinite.  He 
has  naturally  taken  still  more  care  not  to  bring  forward 
the  arguments  which  might  be  employed  for  an  apagogic 
counter-demonstration  when  once  one  ceased  to  adopt  a 
merely  defensive  attitude,  and  began  to  act  on  the  aggres¬ 
sive.  The  proceeding  would  be  somewhat  as  follows: — 

1.  In  the  first  place  the  unhappy  constitution  of  a 
world  in  which  living  beings  subsist  by  mutually  devour¬ 
ing  each  other,  the  consequent  distress  and  dread  of  all 
that  has  life,  the  multitude  and  colossal  magnitude  of 
evil,  the  variety  and  inevitability  of  grief  often  attaining 
to  horror,  the  burden  of  life  itself  hurrying  forward  to 
the  bitterness  of  death  cannot  honestly  be  reconciled 
with  its  being  the  work  of  a  united  All-Goodness,  All- 
Wisdom,  and  All- Power.  To  raise  an  outcry  against 
what  is  here  said  is  just  as  easy  as  it  is  difficult  to  meet 
the  case  with  solid  reasons. 

2.  There  are  two  points  which  not  only  occupy  every 
thinking  man,  but  also  which  the  adherents  of  every  re¬ 
ligion  have  most  at  heart,  and  on  which  the  strength  and 
persistence  of  religion  is  based;  firstly,  the  transcendent 
moral  significance  of  our  conduct;  and  secondly,  our  con¬ 
tinuance  after  death.  When  once  a  religion  has  taken 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


223 


care  of  these  two  points  everything'  else  is  secondary.  I 
will  therefore  test  Theism  here  in  respect  of  the  first, 
and  later  on  in  that  of  the  second  point. 

With  the  morality  of  our  conduct  Theism  has  a  double 
connection,  viz ,  one  a  parte  ante ,  and  one  a  parte  post , 
that  is,  with  respect  to  the  causes  and  consequences  of 
our  action.  To  take  the  last  point  first;  Theism  indeed 
gives  morality  a  support,  albeit  one  of  the  roughest  kind, 
one  indeed  by  which  the  true  and  pure  morality  of  con¬ 
duct  is  fundamentally  abolished,  inasmuch  as  every  dis¬ 
interested  action  is  at  once  transformed  into  an  interested 
one  by  means  of  a  very  long  dated  but  assured  bill  of 
exchange  which  is  received  as  payment  for  it.  The  God, 
viz ,  who  was  in  the  beginning  the  Creator,  appears  in 
the  end  as  an  avenger  aad  paymaster.  Regard  for  such 
an  one  can  certainly  call  forth  virtuous  actions,  but  these 
are  not  purely  moral  since  fear  of  punishment,  or  hope 
of  reward  are  their  motive,  the  significance  of  such 
virtue  being  reducible  rather  to  a  wise  and  well-con¬ 
sidered  egoism.  In  the  last  resort  it  turns  solely  on  the 
strength  of  belief  in  undemonstrable  things;  if  this  is 
present  no  one  will  certainly  stick  at  accepting  a  short 
period  of  sorrow  for  an  eternity  of  joy,  and  the  really 
guiding  principle  of  morality  will  be  <(  we  can  wait.  * 
But  every  one  who  seeks  a  reward  for  his  deeds,  either 
in  this  or  in  a  future  world,  is  an  egoist.  If  the  hoped- 
for  reward  escape  him,  it  is  the  same  thing,  whether 
this  happens  by  the  chance  which  dominates  this  world, 
or  by  the  emptiness  of  the  illusion  which  builds  for  him 
the  future  one.  For  these  reasons  Kant’s  Moral  Theol- 
ogy,  properly  speaking,  undermines  morality. 

Again,  a  parte  ante ,  Theism  is  equally  in  contradic¬ 
tion  with  morality,  since  it  abolishes  freedom  and  re¬ 
sponsibility.  For  with  a  being  which  in  its  existentia 
and  essentia  alike,  is  the  work  of  another,  neither  fault 
nor  merit  can  be  conceived.  Vauvenargues  says  very 
rightly:  (<  Un  itre ,  qui  a  tout  requ,  ne  pent,  agir  que  par 
ce  qui  lui  a  dtd  donnd;  et  tout  la  puissance  divine  qui  est 
infinie,  ne  saurait  le  rendre  ind^ pendant (<(  Discours  sur  la 
Libertd,”  see  (<  CEuvres  completes,®  Paris,  1823,  tom.  ii. , 
p.  331).  Like  every  other  thinkable  being  it  cannot 


224 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


operate  otherwise  than  according  to  its  nature,  and  make 
known  this  nature  in  its  operations;  it  is  created  as  we 
here  find  it  If  it  acts  badly  this  comes  from  the  fact 
that  it  is  bad,  in  which  case  the  fault  is  not  its  own,  but 
his  who  made  it.  The  originator  of  its  existence  and 
its  nature,  to  which  we  may  add  the  circumstances  in 
which  it  has  been  placed,  is  inevitably  the  originator  of 
its  conduct  and  its  deeds,  which  are  as  certainly  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  former  as  the  triangle  is  by  two  angles 
and  a  line.  The  correctness  of  this  argumentation  has 
been  very  well  recognized  and  admitted  by  St.  Augus¬ 
tine,  by  Hume,  and  by  Kant,  while  others  have  glossed 
over  and  timidly  ignored  it,  a  point  I  have  fully  dealt 
with  in  my  prize  essay  on  the  <(  Freedom  of  the  Will,® 
p.  67,  sq.  (2d  ed.,  p.  66,  sq.).  In  order  to  elude  this 
fearful  and  exterminating  difficulty  the  freedom  of  the 
Will,  the  liberum  arbitrhim  indiffer entice,  was  invented,  a 
theory  which  contains  an  utterly  monstrous  fiction,  and 
was  therefore  long  ago  discarded  by  all  thinking  minds, 
but  has  perhaps  never  been  so  systematically  and  thor¬ 
oughly  refuted  as  in  the  work  just  quoted.  If,  notwith¬ 
standing,  the  common  herd  content  themselves  with 
freedom  of  the  Will  —  even  the  literary,  the  philosophi¬ 
cal,  common  herd  —  what  matters  that  to  us?  The  asser¬ 
tion  that  a  given  being  is  free,  that  is,  under  given 
circumstances  can  act  thus  and  also  otherwise,  implies 
that  it  has  an  existentia  without  any  essentia,  i  e. ,  that  it 
can  be  without  being  something,  in  short,  that  it  at  the 
same  time  is  and  is  not.  This,  of  course,  is  the  acme  of 
absurdity,  but  none  the  less,  good  enough  for  people 
who  seek  not  the  truth  but  their  fodder,  and  hence  will 
never  allow  anything  to  obtain  which  does  not  suit  the 
stuff,  the  fable  convenu,  on  which  they  live;  ignoring 
suits  their  obtuseness  better  than  refuting.  And  ought 
we  to  attach  any  weight  to  the  opinions  of  such  /Sow^ara, 
in  terram  prona  et  ventri  obedientia  ?  All  that  is  is 
also  something,  has  an  essence,  a  nature,  a  character, 
in  accordance  with  which  it  must  operate.  It  must  con¬ 
duct  itself  (that  is,  act  according  to  motive),  when  the 
external  occasions  arise  which  call  out  its  particular 
manifestations.  Whence  it  gets  its  actuality,  its  exist- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


225 


entia ,  there  also  it  gets  its  construction,  its  essentia , 
since  the  two,  although  distinguishable  in  conception, 
are  not  separable  in  reality.  But  that  which  has  an 
essentia,  that  is,  a  nature,  a  character,  a  construction, 
can  only  act  in  accordance  therewith,  and  never  other¬ 
wise.  It  is  merely  the  precise  moment,  and  special  form 
and  manner  of  the  individual  actions  which  are  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  incoming  motive.  That  the  creator  made 
man  free,  that  he  gave  him  an  existentia  without  an 
essentia ,  in  other  words,  an  existence  merely  in  abstracto , 
inasmuch  as  he  left  it  to  him  to  be  what  he  would,  is 
an  impossible  proposition.  On  this  point  I  beg  the 
reader  to  refer  to  section  20  of  my  treatise  on  the  <(  Founda¬ 
tions  of  Morality.®  Moral  freedom  and  responsibility,  or 
accountability,  necessarily  presupposes  Aseity.  Actions 
are  always  based  on  character,  that  is,  they  proceed  with 
necessity  from  the  peculiar,  and  therefore  unchangea¬ 
ble  structure  of  a  being  under  the  influence  and  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  measure  of  motive.  Hence,  if  it  is  to  be 
responsible,  it  must  exist  originally  by  virtue  of  its  own 
power.  It  must,  as  regards  its  existentia  and  essentia ,  be 
its  own  work,  and  the  creator  of  itself,  if  it  is  to  be 
the  true  creator  of  its  acts.  Or,  as  I  have  expressed  it 
in  my  two  Prize  Essays,  its  freedom  cannot  consist  in  its 
Operari ,  but  must  reside  in  its  esse,  for  there  it  certainly 
is. 

Since  all  this  is  not  merely  demonstrable  a  priori,  but 
is  clearly  taught  us  by  daily  experience,  to  wit,  that  every 
one  brings  his  moral  character  already  complete  into  the 
world  with  him,  and  remains  unchangeably  true  to  it  to 
the  end,  and  since  this  truth  is  presupposed  tacitly  but 
certainly  in  our  practical  life,  inasmuch  as  everyone  bases 
his  confidence  or  his  misconfidence  in  another,  once  for 
all  on  the  traits  of  character  that  other  has  manifested 
—  this  being  so,  one  might  wonder  how,  for  about  six¬ 
teen  hundred  years,  the  opposite  has  been  theoretically 
asserted  and  taught,  namely,  that  all  men  are  in  respect 
of  morality  originally  the  same,  and  that  the  great  diver¬ 
sity  of  their  conduct  arises  not  from  innate  disposition 
and  character,  and  just  as  little  from  accidental  circum¬ 
stances  and  causes,  but,  properly  speaking,  from  nothing 
15 


226 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


at  all,  which  nothing  at  all  receives  the  name  of  free¬ 
will.  But  this  absurd  doctrine  is  made  necessary  by  an¬ 
other,  in  the  same  way,  purely  theoretical  assumption 
with  which  it  exactly  hangs  together,  namely,  that  the 
birth  of  man  is  the  absolute  beginning  of  his  existence, 
since  he  is  created  out  of  nothing  ( a  terminus  ad  hoe).  If 
now,  under  this  presupposition,  life  is  to  retain  a  moral 
significance  and  tendency,  these  must  have  their  origin 
in  the  course  of  it,  and  must  indeed  originate  from  noth¬ 
ing,  just  as  the  supposed  man  himself  is  from  nothing; 
for  every  connection  with  a  preceding  condition,  a 
previous  existence  or  a  timeless  act  to  which,  neverthe¬ 
less,  the  immeasurable  original  and  innate  variety  of 
moral  characters  clearly  points,  remains  once  for  all  ex¬ 
cluded.  Hence  the  absurd  fiction  of  a  free  will.  Truths, 
it  is  well  known,  all  stand  in  mutual  connection ;  but  er¬ 
rors  also  are  necessary  to  each  other  just  as  one  lie 
requires  a  second,  or  as  two  cards  stood  up  against  one 
another  reciprocally  support  each  other  so  long  as  noth¬ 
ing  overturns  them  both. 

3.  On  the  assumption  of  Theism  it  does  not  fare  much 
better  with  our  continuance  after  death  than  with  the 
freedom  of  the  will.  That  which  has  been  created  by 
another  has  had  a  beginning  of  existence.  Now  that 
that  which  for  an  infinite  time  has  not  been,  should  from 
all  eternity  continue  to  be,  is  an  outrageously  bold 
assumption.  If  at  my  birth  I  have  come  from  nothing 
and  been  created  out  of  nothing,  then  it  is  the  highest 
probability  that  at  death  I  shall  again  become  nothing. 
Endless  continuance  a  parte  post ,  and  nothing,  a  parte 
ante ,  do  not  go  together.  Only  that  which  is  itself  orig¬ 
inal,  eternal,  uncreated,  can  be  indestructible.  ((<  Aris- 
toteles  de  Coelo,®  i.  12,  282,  a,  25  fg.,  and  Priestley,  on 
(<  Matter  and  Spirit,®  Birmingham,  1782,  vol.  i.,  p.  234.) 

Those,  therefore,  may  certainly  be  anxious  in  death 
who  believe  that  before  thirty  or  sixty  years  they  were 
a  pure  nothing,  and  out  of  this  nothing  have  proceeded 
as  the  work  of  another,  for  they  have  the  difficult  task 
of  assuming  that  an  existence  so  arisen,  notwithstanding 
its  late  beginning,  which  has  come  about  after  the  lapse 
of  an  infinite  time,  will,  nevertheless,  be  of  infinite  dur- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


22  7 


ation.  On  the  other  hand,  why  should  he  fear  death 
who  recognizes  himself  as  the  original  and  eternal  being, 
the  very  source  of  all  existence,  who  knows  that  outside 
him  nothing,  properly  speaking,  exists  at  all  —  he  who 
closes  his  individual  existence  with  the  saying  of  the 
Holy  Upanishads,  <(  hoe  omnes  creatures  in  totum  ego  sum , 
ct  preeter  me  ens  aliud  non  estp  on  his  lips  or  even  in  his 
heart.  He  alone,  can  with  logical  consistency,  die  peace¬ 
fully.  For,  as  already  said,  aseity  is  the  condition  of 
immortality  as  of  accountability.  In  accordance  with  the 
foregoing,  contempt  of  death  and  the  most  complete 
indifference  to,  or  even  joy  in  dying,  is  thoroughly  at 
home  in  India.  Judaism,  on  the  contrary,  originally  the 
sole  and  only  pure  monotheistic  religion,  teaching  a  real 
God-creator  of  heaven  and  the  earth,  has  with  perfect 
logicality  no  doctrine  of  immortality,  and  hence  no  recom¬ 
pense  after  death,  but  only  temporal  punishments  and 
rewards,  whereby  it  distinguishes  itself  from  all  other 
religions,  though  possibly  not  to  its  advantage.  The  two 
religions  sprung  from  Judaism,  in  so  far  as  they  took  up 
the  doctrine  of  immortality,  which  had  become  known  to 
them  from  other  and  better  religious  teaching,  and  at 
the  same  time  retained  the  God-creator,  acted  illogically 
in  doing  so. 

That,  as  already  said,  Judaism  is  the  only  pure  mono¬ 
theistic  religion,  i.  e .,  one  teaching  that  a  God-creator  is 
the  origin  of  all  things;  is  a  service  which  for  unknown 
reasons  it  has  been  sought  to  conceal  by  continually 
maintaining  and  teaching  that  all  nations  reverence  the 
true  God,  although  under  other  names.  There  is  not 
merely  much  wanting  in  this  procedure,  but  everything. 
That  Buddhism,  that  is,  the  religion  which,  by  possess¬ 
ing  the  greatest  number  of  adherents,  is  the  most  im¬ 
portant  on  earth,  is  throughout  expressly  atheistic,  is 
placed  beyond  a  doubt  by  the  agreement  of  all  unfalsi¬ 
fied  testimonies  and  original  documents.  The  Vedas  also 
teach  no  God-creator,  but  a  world-soul  called  Brahm 
(neuter),  of  which  the  Brahma  sprung  from  the  navel  of 
Vishnu,  with  the  four  faces,  and  forming  part  of  the 
trimurti,  is  merely  a  popular  personification,  in  the  very 
lucid  manner  of  Hindoo  mythology.  It  represents  obvi- 


228 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


ously  the  generation,  the  arising  of  beings,  as  Vishnu 
does  their  acme,  and  as  Shiva  does  their  destruction. 
The  generation  of  the  world  is  moreover  a  sinful  act,  like 
the  world-incarnation  of  Brahm.  The  Ormuzd  of  the 

f 

Zendavesta  has,  as  we  know,  Ahriman  as  his  counter¬ 
part,  and  both  have  proceeded  from  the  immeasurable 
time  Zervane  Akerene  (if  the  ordinary  view  of  this  be  cor¬ 
rect).  Similarly,  in  the  very  beautiful  cosmogony  of  the 
Phoenicians,  written  by  Sanchoniathon,  and  preserved  for 
us  by  Philo  Byblius,  which  is  perhaps  the  original  of  the 
Mosaic  Cosmogony,  we  find  no  trace  of  Theism  or  world- 
creation  by  a  personal  being.  We  see  here,  also,  as  in 
the  Mosaic  Genesis,  the  original  chaos  sunk  in  night,  but 
no  God  appears  commanding,  <(  Let  there  be  light !  let 
there  be  this,  and  let  there  be  that !  ”  Oh,  no !  but  ypaffti-r] 
rb  nveu/xa  tiuv  Idt'atv  dp^utv.  The  spirit  fermenting  in  the 
mass  embodies  itself  in  its  own  being,  whereby  a  mix¬ 
ture  of  those  original  elements  of  the  world  arises  (and 
arises  indeed,  very  effectively  and  significantly),  from 
which,  in  consequence  of  the  longing,  Tto&o<sy  which,  as 
the  commentator  correctly  observes,  is  the  Eros  of  the 
Greeks,  it  develops  itself  from  the  primeval  slime,  and 
out  of  this  proceed,  finally,  plants,  and  last  of  all  intelli¬ 
gent  beings,  that  is,  animals.  For  up  to  this  time,  as  it 
is  expressly  stated,  everything  went  on  without  intelli¬ 
gence  ;  aurd  8k  ouk  kyiyvcutTKS  ttjv  kauroo  ktigiv.  Thus  does  it 
stand,  adds  Sanchoniathon,  in  the  Cosmogony  written 
*  by  Taaut,  the  Egyptian.  A  more  detailed  Zoogony  then 
follows  upon  his  Cosmogony.  Certain  atmospheric  and 
terrestrial  occurrences  are  described  which  really  suggest 
the  correct  assumptions  of  our  modern  geology.  At 
last,  after  heavy  floods  of  rain,  comes  thunder  and 
lightning,  startled  by  the  crashing  of  which  intelligent 
animals  awake  into  existence.  <(  And  there  moves  now 
on  the  earth  and  in  the  sea,  male  and  female.” 
Eusebius,  whom  we  have  to  thank  for  this  fragment 
of  Philo  Byblius  ( <(  Prseparat.  Evangel.,”  1.  ii. ,  c.  io), 
justly  accuses  this  cosmogony  of  atheism,  which  it  is, 
incontestably,  like  all  and  every  theory  of  the  origin  of 
the  world,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  Jewish.  In 
the  mythology  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  we  find,  indeed, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


229 


God  as  father  of  Gods,  and  sometimes  also  of  men 
( although  these  were  rather  the  potter’s  work  of  Prome¬ 
theus),  hut  no  God-creator.  For  that  later  a  few  philos¬ 
ophers  to  whom  Judaism  had  become  known,  wanted  to 
transform  father  Zeus  into  such,  does  not  affect  the 
matter;  just  as  little  as  that  Dante,  without  having  sought 
his  permission,  identifies  him  without  scruple  in  his  hell 
with  Domeneddio,  whose  unparalleled  vengeance  and 
cruelty  is  stigmatized  and  pictured  ( e .  g c.  14,  70;  c.  31, 
92).  Finally  (for  everything  has  been  brought  into 
requisition),  the  endlessly  repeated  statement  that  the 
North  American  Indians  worshiped  God,  the  Creator  of 
heaven  and  earth,  under  the  name  of  the  Great  Spirit, 
and  hence  were  pure  Theists,  is  entirely  incorrect.  This 
error  has  recently  been  refuted  in  a  treatise  on  the  North 
American  Indians,  which  John  Scouler  read  before  a  sit¬ 
ting  of  the  London  Ethnographical  Society  in  1846,  and 
of  which  <(lTnstitut,  Journal  des  Socidt^s  Savantes,®  sect. 
2,  Juillet,  1847,  gives  an  extract.  It  says:  (<  When  we  are 
told  in  reports  on  the  superstitions  of  the  Indians,  about 
the  Great  Spirit,  we  are  apt  to  assume  that  it  desig¬ 
nates  a  conception  agreeing  with  that  which  we  associate 
with  it,  and  that  their  belief  is  a  simple  natural  Theism. 
But  this  interpretation  is  very  far  from  correct.  The 
religion  of  these  Indians  is  rather  a  pure  Fetichism, 
which  consists  in  magical  practices  and  Incantations  In 
the  report  of  Tanner,  who  lived  among  them  from  child¬ 
hood,  the  facts  are  trustworthy  and  remarkable,  albeit 
very  different  from  the  inventions  of  certain  writers.  One 
sees  from  it  namely,  that  the  religion  of  the  Indians  is 
only  a  Fetichism  similar  to  that  which  was  formerly  met 
with  among  the  Finns,  and  is  still  among  the  Siberian 
tribes.  With  the  Indians  dwelling  eastward  of  the  Moun¬ 
tains  the  Fetich  consists  simply  of  any  object,  it  matters 
not  what,  to  which  mysterious  qualities  are  attributed,®  etc. 

In  accordance  with  all  this,  the  opinion  here  in  ques¬ 
tion  has  to  make  way  for  its  opposite,  to  wit,  that  only 
one  very  small  and  unimportant  nation,  despised  by  all 
contemporary  nations,  and  living  alone  among  them  all 
without  the  belief  in  a  continued  existence  after  death, 
but  nevertheless  selected  for  the  purpose,  has  possessed 


230 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


a  pure  monotheism,  or  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God; 
and  this,  moreover,  not  through  philosophy,  but  only 
through  revelation,  as  was  indeed  suitable ;  for  what 
value  would  a  revelation  have  which  only  taught  one 
what  one  knew  without  it  ?  That  no  other  nation  has 
ever  conceived  such  an  idea  must  accordingly  contribute 
to  our  estimate  of  the  revelation. 


Section  14. 

SOME  OBSERVATIONS  ON  MY  OWN  PHILOSOPHY. 

There  is  scarcely  any  philosophical  system  so  simple 
and  constructed  out  of  such  few  elements  as  my  own;  a 
fact  rendering  it  readily  comprehensible  at  a  glance. 
This  results  from  the  complete  unity  and  consistency  of 
its  fundamental  positions,  and  is  certainly  a  favorable 
augury  for  its  truth,  truth  being  allied  to  simplicity 
aTzXooi  6  T7js  dlrjtieia?  ).oyo$  k'<pv.  Simplex  sigillum  veri.  My 
system  might  be  signalized  as  immanent  dogmatism,  since 
its  doctrines,  although  dogmatic,  do  not  transcend  the 
given  world  of  experience,  but  merely  explain  what  the 
latter  is,  by  analyzing  it  into  its  ultimate  elements. 
The  old  dogmatism  overturned  by  Kant  (and  not  less 
the  air-bubbles  of  the  three  modern  University-Sophists), 
is  transcendent  in  that  it  passes  beyond  the  world,  to 
explain  it  by  something  foreign  thereto :  it  makes  the  world 
the  consequence  of  a  cause  which  is  inferred  from  itself. 
My  philosophy,  on  the  other  hand,  began  with  the  doc¬ 
trine  that  cause  and  effect  possess  meaning  solely  within 
the  world,  and  that  only  under  the  presupposition  of  it 
are  there  causes  and  effects;  inasmuch  as  the  principle 
of  cause  in  its  four  modes  is  merely  the  most  universal 
form  of  the  intellect,  and  that  in  this  alone,  as  its  true 
locus  mundi,  the  objective  world  exists. 

In  other  philosophical  systems,  the  consequence  is 
reached  through  a  chain  of  propositions.  But  this  neces¬ 
sarily  demands  that  the  special  content  of  the  system  be 
present  in  the  very  earliest  of  these  propositions ;  whereby 
the  rest,  as  derived  from  them,  can  scarcely  appear  other- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


231 


wise  than  monotonous,  poor,  empty,  and  tedious,  being 
simply  a  development  and  repetition  of  what  was  con¬ 
tained  in  the  original  premises.  This  unhappy  con¬ 
sequence  of  demonstrative  deduction  is  most  felt  in 
Christian  Wolff;  but  even  Spinoza,  who  strictly  followed 
this  method,  was  unable  entirely  to  escape  its  drawbacks, 
although  his  genius  knew  how  to  compensate  for  them. 
My  doctrines,  on  the  other  hand,  do  not,  for  the  most 
part,  rest  on  a  chain  of  syllogisms,  but  immediately  on 
the  sensible  world  itself,  and  the  strict  consequence,  as 
visible  in  my  own,  as  in  any  other  system,  is,  as  a  rule, 
not  simply  arrived  at  by  a  logical  process,  but  is  rather 
the  natural  agreement  of  doctrines,  necessarily  resulting 
from  their  being  based,  in  their  entirety,  on  intuitive 
cognition,  i.  e. ,  on  the  sensible  perception  of  the  one 
object,  successively  contemplated  from  different  sides,  or 
in  other  words,  on  the  real  world,  which  in  all  its  phe¬ 
nomena  is  subject  to  the  consciousness  wherein  it  pre¬ 
sents  itself. 

For  this  reason  I  have  never  had  a  care  as  to  the  mu¬ 
tual  consistency  of  my  doctrines ;  not  even  when  some  of 
these  appeared  to  me  inconsistent,  as  was  the  case  for 
some  time;  for  the  agreement  came  afterward  of  itself 
in  proportion  to  the  numerical  completeness  of  the  doc¬ 
trines;  consistency  in  my  case  being  nothing  more  than 
the  consistency  of  reality  with  itself,  which,  of  course, 
can  never  fail.  This  is  analogous  to  when,  on  looking 
at  a  building  for  the  first  time  on  one  side  only,  we  fail 
to  understand  the  symmetry  of  its  parts,  yet  feel  per¬ 
fectly  sure  that  it  is  not  wanting,  but  will  be  visible  to 
us  on  the  completion  of  our  view.  But  the  above  con¬ 
sistency  is  a  perfectly  certain  one,  because  of  its  origi¬ 
nation,  and  because  it  stands  under  the  continual  control 
of  experience;  while  that  which  is  deduced,  and  whose 
validity  is  derived  from  syllogisms,  may  easily  be  found 
false  in  some  particular;  should,  for  instance,  a  member 
of  the  long  chain  be  ungenuine,  loosely  fitted,  or  other¬ 
wise  faulty  in  its  construction.  My  philosophy,  accord¬ 
ingly,  has  a  wide  basis,  on  which  everything  stands 
immediately  and,  therefore,  firmly;  while  other  systems 
resemble  lofty  towers,  where  if  one  support  breaks,  the 


232 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


whole  edifice  falls  to  the  ground.  The  foregoing  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  statement  that  my  philosophy  has 
arisen,  and  is  presented,  in  an  analytic  rather  than  a  * 
synthetic  manner. 

I  may  adduce  as  a  special  characteristic  of  my  philoso¬ 
phizing,  that  I  seek  everywhere  to  arrive  at  the  foundation 
of  things,  and  that  I  am  not  satisfied  till  I  have  found 
the  ultimate  given  reality.  This  is  in  accordance  with 
the  natural  bent  of  my  mind,  which  renders  it  well-nigh 
impossible  for  me  to  rest  in  any  more  general  and  ab¬ 
stract  and,  therefore,  undetermined  knowledge,  in  mere 
conceptions,  least  of  all  in  mere  words;  but  drives  me 
forward  till  I  have  the  final  basis  of  all  conceptions  and 
propositions  which  is  always  an  intuitive  one,  exposed 
before  me,  and  which  I  then  must  either  leave  as  an  ul¬ 
timate  phenomenon,  or,  if  possible,  resolve  it  into  its 
elements,  but  either  way,  follow  out  the  essential  nature 
of  the  thing  to  its  uttermost.  On  this  account,  it  will  be 
recognized  one  day  ( though  certainly  not  during  my 
lifetime )  that  the  handling  of  the  same  subject  by  any 
earlier  philosopher  is  tame  as  compared  with  mine.  Man¬ 
kind  has  learned  much  from  me  that  will  never  be  for¬ 
gotten,  and  my  writings  will  not  pass  into  oblivion. 

Theism  also  assumes  the  world  to  be  the  production  of 
a  Will  —  a  Will  that  guides  the  planets  in  their  orbits, 
and  calls  forth  nature  upon  their  surface.  But  theism,  in 
childish  fashion,  places  this  Will  outside  the  Universe, 
and  only  allows  it  to  operate  indirectly  on  the  things, 
namely,  through  the  medium  of  cognition  and  matter, 
in  a  Human  manner;  while  with  me  the  Will  works 
not  so  much  on  things,  as  in  them ;  they  themselves 
being  indeed  naught  else  but  its  visible  manifestation. 

This  agreement  proves,  however,  that  we  cannot  regard 
the  original  of  things  in  any  other  light  than  as  Will. 
Pantheism  calls  this  ever-active  Will  that  is  in  things  by 
the  name  of  God;  an  absurdity  frequently  and  strongly 
enough  exposed  by  me.  I  have  designated  it  the  Will 
to  live;  because  this  expresses  the  finality  of  our  knowl¬ 
edge  on  the  subject.  The  above  relation  of  the  Mediate 
to  the  Immediate  presents  itself  also  in  the  sphere  of 
Morals.  The  Theists  would  have  a  reconciliation  between 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


233 


what  one  does  and  what  one  suffers,  and  so  would  I. 
But  they  make  this  take  place  through  the  medium  of 
time,  and  the  interposition  of  a  Judge  and  Avenger.  I, 
on  the  other  hand,  immediately,  since  I  demonstrate  the 
same  being  in  the  actor  and  the  sufferer.  The  moral 
consequences  of  Christianity  to  the  most  extreme  As¬ 
ceticism  are  present  with  me,  but  based  on  the  reason 
and  the  connection  of  things ;  while  in  Christianity  they  are 
supported  by  mere  fables.  The  belief  in  these  is  daily 
waning;  people  will,  therefore,  be  forced  to  turn  to  my 
philosophy.  The  Pantheists  can  have  no  seriously-meant 
morality,  since  they  regard  everything  as  equally  di¬ 
vine  and  excellent.  It  has  often  been  made  a  reproach 
to  me  that  in  philosophy,  namely  theoretically,  I  have 
represented  life  as  miserable  and  no  way  to  be  desired; 
It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  practically,  he 
who  lays  little  store  by  his  life  is  praised,  nay  admired, 
and  he  who  is  careful  and  troubled  as  to  its  preserva¬ 
tion  is  despised.  My  writings  had  scarcely  begun  to 
awaken  the  curiosity  of  some  persons  before  the  question 
of  priority  arose  with  reference  to  my  fundamental 
thought,  it  being  represented  that  Schelling  had  once 
said,  <(  Will  is  Being  ® ;  and  anything  else  of  this  kind 
which  could  be  adduced.  With  regard  to  this  matter,  it 
may  be  observed  that  the  root  of  my  philosophy  is 
already  present  in  the  Kantian,  especially  in  Kant’s  doc¬ 
trine  of  empirical  and  intelligible  character,  but  above 
all,  in  that  whenever  Kant  brings  the  thing-in-itself 
nearer  the  light,  it  always  appears  through  its  veil  as 
Will;  a  point  to  which  I  have  expressly  called  attention 
in  my  <(  Critique  of  the  Kantian  Philosophy,  ®  and  have 
said  accordingly  that  my  philosophy  is  no  more  than 
its  complete  thinking-out.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
then,  if  the  philosophizings  of  Fichte  and  Schelling,  who 
equally  started  from  Kant,  also  show  traces  of  the  same 
fundamental  idea ;  although  they  there  appear  without 
consequence,  connection,  or  development,  and  therefore 
may  be  regarded  as  a  mere  foretaste  of  my  doctrines. 
But,  in  general,  as  regards  this  point,  it  may  be  re¬ 
marked  that  every  great  truth  before  its  discovery  is 
announced  by  a  previous  feeling,  a  presentiment,  a  faint 


234 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


outline  as  in  fog,  and  an  unavailing  attempt  to  grasp  it; 
simply  because  the  progress  of  the  time  has  prepared  it. 
It  is,  therefore,  preluded  by  disjointed  utterances.  But 
he  alone,  who  has  recognized  a  truth  from  its  causes, 
and  thought  it  out  to  its  consequences,  developed  its 
whole  content,  cast  his  eyes  over  the  extent  of  its 
domain,  and  after  this,  with  a  full  consciousness  of 
its  value  and  importance,  clearly  and  connectedly 
expounded  it,  he  alone  is  its  originator.  When,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  happens  on  some  occasion  or  other, 
to  have  been  expressed  either  in  ancient  or  modem 
times,  with  a  half  consciousness,  almost  as  an  utterance 
in  sleep,  and  is  hence  to  be  found  only  if  expressly  looked  for, 
it  has  little  further  significance,  even  though  it  stand  there 
totidem  verbis ,  than  if  it  were  there  merely  totidem  litteris. 
Just  as  the  finder  of  a  thing  is  he,  who  knowing  its  value, 
picks  it  up  and  keeps  it ;  and  not  he  who  chances  to  take 
it  into  his  hand,  and  let  it  fall  again;  or,  once  more, 
Columbus  is  the  discoverer  of  America,  and  not  the  first 
shipwrecked  sailor  the  waves  cast  up  there.  This  is  pre¬ 
cisely  the  meaning  of  the  Donatian  pereant  qui  ante  nos 
nostra  dixerunt.  Had  my  critics  desired  to  establish  an 
effective  priority  against  me  on  the  strength  of  such 
chance  sayings,  they  should  have  sought  farther  back 
when,  for  instance,  they  might  have  adduced  Clemens 
Alexandrinus  (Strom.  II.,  c.  17):  Ttpot]ys~iTai  roivov  Tzdvrtjv  r<3 

ftouXeaftai'  al  yap  Xoywa'i  duvapeez  too  fiobkeohat  dtanovoi  Tretputcaat 
( Velle  ergo  omnia  antecedit:  rationales  enim  facidtates 
sunt  voluntatis  ministrcz  (®  Sanctorum  Patrum  Opera 
Polemica,”  vol.  v.  Weissburghi,  1779;  <(  dementis  Alex. 
Opera, ®  tom.  ii. ,  p.  304);  as  also  Spinoza:  Cupiditas  est 
ipsa  unius  cujusque  natura ,  sen  essentia ,  (<(  Eth.,®  p.  iff., 
prop.  57)  and  before:  Hie  conatus ,  cum  ad  mentem  solam 
refertur,  Voluntas  appellatur ;  sed  cum  ad  mentem  et  corpus 
simul  refertur ,  vocatur  Appetitus,  qui  proinde  nihil  aliud 
est,  quam  ipsa  hominis  essentia  (p.  iff.,  prop.  9,  schol. ,  and 
finally,  p.  iii.  Defin.  I.,  explic.).  Helve tius  remarks  with 
great  justice:  II  n' est  point  de  moyens  que  Venvieux,  sous 
I'apparence  de  la  justice ,  n'emploie  pour  degrader  le  mlrite. 

.  .  .  C' est  Venvie  seule  qui  nous  fait  tr Oliver  dans  les 
anciens  toutes  les  dlcouvertes  modernes.  Une  phrase  vide  de 


THE  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY 


235 


sens ,  ou  du  moms  inintelligible  avant  ccs  decouvertes ,  suffit 
pour  faire  crier  au plagiat  ((<  De  1’ Esprit,®  iv.  7).  There 
is  one  more  passage  in  Helvetius  I  shall  take  the  liberty 
of  recalling,  having  reference  to  the  matter  in  question, 
the  quotation  of  which  I  must  beg  the  reader  not  to  lay 
down  to  vanity  and  arrogance,  but  simply  to  bear  in 
mind  the  justice  of  the  thought  expressed  and  consider 
whether  or  not  something  in  it  will  be  found  capable  of 
application  to  myself.  Quiconque  se  plait  h  considtrer 
V esprit  humain  voit ,  dans  chaque  siecle,  cinq  ou  six  hommes 
d' esprit  tourner  autour  de  la  dtcouverte  que  fait  Vhomme  de 
gdnie.  Si  I'honneur  eu  reste  a  ce  dernier ,  c'est  que  cette  dt- 
couverte  est,  entre  ses  mains ,  plus  ftconde  que  dans  les  mains 
de  tout  autre  ;  c'est  qu'il  rend  ses  id/es  avec  plus  de  force  et 
de  nettetd ;  et  qu'enfin  on  voit  toujour s  a  la  manure  differ ente, 
dont  les  hommes  tirent  parti  d'un  principe  ou  d'une  ddcou- 
verte  h  qui  ce  principe  au  cette  ddcouverte  appartient  (<(  De- 
1’ Esprit,®  iv.  1). 

As  a  consequence  of  the  old,  irreconcilable  war,  that  has 
everywhere  and  always  been  waged  by  incapacity  and  stu¬ 
pidity  against  intellect  and  understanding  —  by  legions  on 
the  one  side  against  individuals  on  the  other  —  he  who 
brings  to  light  anything  valuable  and  genuine  has  to  fight 
a  hard  battle  with  incompetence,  dullness,  depraved  taste, 
private  interests  and  envy,  all  in  that  worthy  alliance, 
respecting  which  Chamfort  says :  en  examinant  la  ligne  des 
sots  contre  les  gens  d' esprit  on  croirait  voir  une  conjuration 
de  valets  pour  dcarter  les  maitres.  In  my  case  there  was,  in 
addition,  an  unusual  enemy  engaged ;  the  greater  part  of 
those,  whose  business  it  was  to  guide  public  opinion  in  my 
department,  were  appointed  and  paid  to  propagate  and  to 
laud  to  the  very  skies  that  worst  of  all  systems — the 
Hegelian.  But  this  cannot  succeed  if  one  is  determined 
that  the  good  shall  produce  its  effect,  even  though  it  be 
only  in  a  measure.  The  above  may  explain  to  my  future 
readers  the,  to  them,  otherwise  unaccountable  fact,  that  I 
have  remained  as  unknown  to  my  own  contemporaries  as 
the  man  in  the  moon.  It  must  be  acknowledged,  notwith¬ 
standing,  that  a  system  of  thought  which,  in  the  absence 
of  any  participation  on  the  part  of  others,  has  been  able  to 
engage  its  originator  throughout  a  long  life  unceasingly 


236 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


and  cheerfully,  and  to  spur  him  on  to  unremitting  and 
unrewarded  labor  possesses  in  itself  a  testimony  to  its 
value  and  its  truth.  Destitute  of  any  encouragement  from 
outside,  the  love  of  my  work  alone  has  through  the  many 
days  of  my  life  upheld  my  endeavors,  and  not  allowed  me 
to  tire.  I  have,  therefore,  looked  with  contempt  on  the 
noisy  celebrity  of  the  worthless.  For  upon  my  entry 
upon  life  my  genius  laid  before  me  this  choice,  either  to 
acknowledge  the  truth,  but  therewith  to  please  no  one;  or, 
like  others,  to  teach  falsehood  with  support  and  applause ; 
and  the  choice  was  not  difficult  for  me.  Accordingly,  the 
fortune  of  my  philosophy  was  the  opposite  of  that  of  the 
Hegelian,  so  entirely  so,  indeed,  that  one  may  regard  them 
both  as  the  opposite  sides  of  the  same  sheet,  according 
to  the  construction  of  both  philosophies.  Hegelianism, 
devoid  alike  of  truth,  clearness,  and  intelligence,  nay,  of 
human  understanding,  and  in  addition  appearing  in  the 
shape  of  the  most  sickening  Gallimathias  that  had  ever 
been  heard  of,  was  a  subsidized  and  privileged  academ¬ 
ical  philosophy,  consequently  a  species  of  nonsense  which 
supported  its  author.  My  philosophy  appearing  simultane¬ 
ously  with  it  had,  indeed,  all  the  qualities  which  it  lacked ; 
but  it  was  not  cut  out  for  any  ulterior  purposes,  was  not 
at  all  suited  at  that  time  for  the  chair,  and,  therefore,  as 
the  expression  is,  there  was  nothing  to  be  made  out  of  it. 
It  followed  then,  as  day  follows  night,  that  Hegelianism 
was  the  flag  to  which  all  ran,  while  my  philosophy  found 
neither  applause  nor  adherents;  but  was  rather  with  a 
uniform  purpose  completely  ignored,  treated  with  silence, 
and  where  possible  smothered,  because  through  its  pres¬ 
ence  the  above  miserable  game  would  have  been  spoiled,  as 
shadows  on  the  wall  are  by  the  incoming  daylight.  Hence 
I  became  the  Iron  Mask,  or  as  the  excellent  Dorguth 
says,  the  Kaspar-Hauser  of  the  professors  of  philosophy: 
shut  out  from  air  and  light  that  no  one  might  see  me, 
and  that  my  natural  claims  might  not  be  recognized. 
Now,  however,  the  Man  who  should  have  been  killed  by 
the  silence  of  the  professors  of  philosophy  is  again  risen 
from  the  dead,  to  the  great  consternation  of  the  pro¬ 
fessors  of  philosophy,  who  do  not  know  at  all  what  face 
they  shall  assume. 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD.* 


The  ultimate  basis  on  which  all  our  cognitions  and 
sciences  rest,  is  the  inexplicable.  Every  explanation  leads 
back  to  this  by  means  of  more  or  less  intermediate  stages ; 
as  in  the  sea  the  plummet  finds  the  bottom,  now  in 
greater,  now  in  lesser  depths,  but  must  nevertheless  every¬ 
where  reach  it  at  last.  This  inexplicable  falls  to  the  share 
of  Metaphysics. 

Almost  all  men  unceasingly  think  they  are  this  and 
this  man  (rt?  avftpa>nos)f  together  with  the  corollaries 
which  result  therefrom.  On  the  other  hand,  that  they 
are  Man  in  general  (6  avftpwno?),  and  the  corollaries  which 
follow  from  this,  scarcely  ever  occurs  to  them,  but  is 
nevertheless  the  main  point.  The  few  who  pay  more 
attention  to  the  latter  than  to  the  former  proposition  are 
philosophers.  But  the  tendency  of  the  others  is  reducible 
to  the  fact  that  they  never  see  anything  in  the  things 
except  the  particular  and  individual,  and  not  their  uni¬ 
versality.  Only  the  more  highly  gifted  see  more  or  less, 
according  to  the  degree  of  their  intelligence,  the  universal 
in  particular  things.  This  important  distinction  inter¬ 
penetrates  the  whole  faculty  of  knowledge  so  far  indeed 
that  it  extends  itself  down  to  the  intuition  of  the  most 
everyday  objects;  hence  in  the  highly  gifted  head  these 
are  other  than  in  the  ordinary  head.  This  grasp  of  the 
universal  in  the  particular,  which  always  presents  itself, 
is  coincident  with  that  which  I  have  called  the  pure 
will-less  Subject  of  Knowledge,  and  have  postulated  as 
the  subjective  correlate  of  the  Platonic  Idea.  This  is 
proved  because,  when  directed  on  the  universal,  the  in¬ 
telligence  may  remain  will-less,  while,  on  the  contrary, 
the  objects  of  the  Will  lie  in  particular  things;  for  which 
reason  the  intelligence  of  animals  is  strictly  limited  to 
these  particulars,  and  accordingly  their  intellect  remains 

*  The  following  essays  are  from  the  second  volume  of  the  «  Parerga 
and  Paralipomena,^  and  are  headed  <(  Detached  yet  systematically 
arranged  thoughts  on  many  different  subjects. » 


(237) 


238 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


exclusively  in  the  service  of  their  will.  The  above  direc¬ 
tion  of  the  mind  to  the  universal  is  the  indispensable 
condition  of  genuine  achievements  in  philosophy,  poetry, 
and  in  the  arts  and  sciences  generally. 

For  the  intellect  in  the  service  of  the  Will,  that  is,  in 
practical  use,  there  are  only  particular  things.  For  the 
intellect  which  pursues  art  and  science,  in  other  words, 
which  is  active  for  its  own  sake,  there  are  only  univer¬ 
salities,  whole  kinds,  species,  classes,  Ideas,  of  things, 
for  even  the  creative  artist  wishes  to  present  the  Idea, 
that  is,  the  kind  in  the  individual.  This  comes  about  be¬ 
cause  the  Will  is  turned  directly  merely  to  individual 
things;  these  are,  properly  speaking,  its  objects,  for  these 
alone  have  empirical  reality.  Concepts,  classes,  species, 
can,  on  the  contrary,  become  objects  only  very  indirectly. 
Hence  the  common  man  has  no  sense  for  universal  truths. 
But  genius  overlooks  and  misses  the  individual  element. 
The  compulsory  occupation  with  the  particular,  as  such, 
in  so  far  as  it  constitutes  the  matter  of  practical  life,  is 
an  irksome  bondage. 

The  two  first  conditions  of  philosophizing  are  these: 
firstly,  to  have  the  courage  to  set  one’s  heart  upon  no 
question ;  and,  secondly,  to  bring  all  that  which  is  obvious 
in  itself  to  clear  consciousness  in  order  to  comprehend  it 
as  problem.  Finall}'-,  in  order,  properly  speaking,  to  phi¬ 
losophize,  the  mind  must  be  truly  at  leisure.  It  must  pur¬ 
sue  no  purposes,  and  thus  not  be  led  by  the  Will,  but 
give  itself  over  undividedly  to  the  teaching  which  the 
perceptive  world  and  its  own  consciousness  impart  to  it. 
Now  professors  of  philosophy  are  concerned  as  to  their 
personal  use  and  advantage,  and  what  leads  thereto ;  there 
the  serious  point  for  them  lies.  For  this  reason  they  fail 
altogether  to  see  so  many  obvious  things,  indeed  do  not 
so  much  as  once  come  to  reflection  on  the  problems  of 
philosophy. 

The  poet  brings  pictures  of  life,  human  character,  and 
situations  before  the  imagination,  sets  everything  in  mo¬ 
tion,  and  leaves  it  to  everyone  to  think  into  these  pic¬ 
tures,  as  much  as  his  intellectual  power  will  find  for  him 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD 


239 


therein.  On  this  account  he  can  satisfy  men  of  the  most 
diverse  capacities,  even  fools  and  wise  men  at  the  same 
time.  Now  the  philosopher  does  not  bring  in  the  same 
way  life  itself,  but  the  completed  thoughts  which  he  has 
abstracted  from  it,  and  demands  that  his  reader  should 
think  just  in  the  same  way,  and  just  as  far  as  he  himself, 
and  his  public  is,  in  consequence,  very  small.  The  poet 
may  therefore  be  compared  to  him  who  brings  the  flow¬ 
ers,  the  philosopher  to  him  who  brings  the  quintessence. 

Another  great  advantage  which  poetical  achievements 
have  over  philosophical  is  this,  that  all  poetical  works  can 
stand  without  hindrance  to  each  other  side  by  side ;  while 
a  philosophical  system  has  hardly  come  into  the  world, 
but  it  contemplates  the  destruction  of  all  its  brothers, 
like  an  Asiatic  sultan  on  ascending  the  throne.  For  as 
there  can  only  be  one  queen  in  a  beehive,  so  there  can 
only  be  one  philosophy  on  the  order  of  the  day.  Sys¬ 
tems  are  of  as  unsociable  a  nature  as  spiders,  of  which 
each  sits  alone  in  its  web,  and  sees  how  many  flies  will 
let  themselves  be  caught  in  it,  but  only  approaches 
another  spider  in  order  to  fight  it.  Thus,  while  the 
works  of  poets  pasture  peacefully  next  each  other  like 
lambs,  those  of  philosophers  are  born  ravening  beasts, 
and  their  destructive  impulses  are  even  directed  primarily 
against  their  own  species,  like  those  of  scorpions,  spiders, 
and  the  larvce  of  certain  insects.  They  come  into  the 
world  like  the  armed  men  from  the  seed  of  Jason’s  drag¬ 
ons’  teeth,  and  have  till  now  like  these  mutually  exter¬ 
minated  each  other.  This  battle  has  already  lasted  more 
than  2,000  years.  Will  a  final  victory  and  lasting  peace 
ever  result  from  it  ? 

In  consequence  of  its  essentially  polemical  nature,  this 
bellum  omnium  contra  omnes  of  the  philosophical  sys¬ 
tems,  it  is  infinitely  more  difficult  to  obtain  recognition 
as  philosopher  than  as  poet.  The  work  of  the  poet 
demands  nothing  further  from  the  reader  than  to  enter  into 
the  series  of  the  writings  which  amuse  or  elevate  him, 
and  the  devotion  of  some  few  hours  to  them.  The  work 
of  the  philosopher,  on  the  contrary,  is  intended  to  revo¬ 
lutionize  his  whole  mode  of  thought;  it  requires  of  him 
that  he  shall  acknowledge  all  he  has  learned  and  believed 


240 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


in  this  department  to  be  error,  his  time  and  trouble  to 
be  lost,  and  shall  begin  again  from  the  beginning.  It, 
at  most,  leaves  some  rudiments  of  its  predecessor  stand¬ 
ing  in  order  to  build  its  foundation  upon  them.  To  this 
is  added  that,  in  every  teacher  of  an  already  existing 
system,  it  has  a  professional  opponent,  and  that  some¬ 
times  even  the  state  takes  a  philosophical  system  that 
pleases  it  under  its  protection,  and  by  the  help  of  its 
powerful  material  resources  prevents  the  success  of  any 
other.  Again,  one  must  consider  that  the  size  of  the 
philosophical  public  is  proportioned  to  that  of  the  poet¬ 
ical,  as  the  number  of  people  who  want  to  be  taught  to 
those  who  want  to  be  amused,  and  one  will  be  able  to 
judge,  quibus  auspiciis  a  philosopher  makes  his  entry. 
It  is  indeed  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  it  is  the  ap¬ 
plause  of  thinkers  of  the  elect  of  all  periods  and  all 
countries  without  difference  of  nation  which  rewards  the 
philosopher;  the  multitude  gradually  learns  to  reverence 
his  name  on  the  strength  of  authority.  In  accordance 
with  the  foregoing,  and  on  account  of  the  slow  but  deep 
effect  of  the  progress  of  philosophy  on  which  the  whole 
human  race  proceeds,  since  thousands  of  years  the  his¬ 
tory  of  philosophers  goes  with  that  of  kings,  and  counts 
a  hundred  times  fewer  names  than  the  latter.  Hence  it 
is  a  great  thing  to  procure  for  one’s  own  name  an  endur¬ 
ing  place  therein. 

The  philosophical  writer  is  the  guide,  and  his  reader 
is  the  wanderer.  If  they  are  to  arrive  together  they 
must,  above  all  things,  start  together ;  that  is,  the  author 
must  take  his  reader  to  a  standpoint  which  they  have  in 
common;  but  this  can  be  no  other  than  that  of  the  em¬ 
pirical  consciousness  which  is  common  to  all  of  us.  Let 
him,  then,  grasp  him  firmly  by  the  hand,  and  see  how 
high  above  the  clouds  he  can  attain,  step  by  step,  along 
the  mountain  path.  This  is  how  Kant  proceeds.  He 
starts  from  common  experience,  as  well  of  one’s  own  self 
as  of  other  things.  How  mistaken  it  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  seek  to  start  from  the  standpoint  of  an  assumed 
intellectual  intuition  of  hyperphysical  relations,  or  proc¬ 
esses,  or  even  of  a  reason  which  perceives  the  supersensi- 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD 


241 


ble,  or  of  an  absolute,  self-thinking  Reason.  For  all  this 
means  starting  from  the  standpoint  of  not  directly  com¬ 
municable  cognitions,  when  therefore  even  at  starting  the 
reader  does  not  know  whether  he  is  near  his  author,  or 
miles  distant  from  him. 

Conversation  with  another,  and  serious  meditation  and 
inward  contemplation  of  the  things,  is  as  a  machine  to  a 
living  organism.  For  only  in  the  latter  case  is  everything 
cut  from  one  piece,  or  as  it  were  played  in  one  key, 
whereby  alone  it  can  acquire  clearness,  intelligibility,  and 
true  coherence  —  in  fact,  unity.  Otherwise,  heterogeneous 
pieces  of  very  different  origin  are  stuck  together,  and  a 
certain  unity  of  movement  is  forced,  which  often  unex¬ 
pectedly  stops.  It  is  only  oneself  that  one  understands 
perfectly;  others  only  half,  for  one  can  at  most  attain  to 
community  of  concepts,  but  never  to  the  perceptual  point 
of  view  lying  at  their  foundation.  Hence  deep  philo¬ 
sophical  truths  are  never  brought  to  light  by  way  of 
common  thinking  in  dialogue.  Such,  however,  is  very 
serviceable  as  practice  to  the  hunting  up  of  problems,  to 
their  ventilation,  and  afterward  to  the  testing,  control¬ 
ling,  and  criticising  of  the  proposed  solution.  Plato’s 
dialogues  are  composed  in  this  sense,  and  accordingly 
the  second  and  third  academies  which  issued  from  his 
school  took  on  a  more  and  more  sceptical  direction.  As 
form  for  the  communication  of  philosophical  ideas  the 
written  dialogue  is  only  serviceable  where  the  subject 
admits  of  two  or  more  wholly  different  or  even  opposite 
views  respecting  which  the  judgment  of  the  reader  shall 
either  remain  suspended,  or  which,  taken  together,  shall 
lead  to  a  complete  and  accurate  understanding  of  the 
matter.  To  the  first  case  belongs  the  refutation  of  ob¬ 
jections  raised.  The  dialogue  form  chosen  for  this  pur¬ 
pose  must,  however,  be  genuinely  dramatic;  in  that 
the  differences  of  opinion  are  laid  bare  to  their  founda¬ 
tions  and  thoroughly  worked  out.  There  must  really  be 
two  speaking.  Without  this,  it  is,  as  is  mostly  the  case, 
mere  idle  play. 

Neither  our  knowledge  nor  our  insight  will  be  ever  spe¬ 
cially  increased  by  the  comparison  and  discussion  of  what 
16 


242 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


has  been  said  by  others;  for  that  is  always  like  pouring- 
water  from  one  vessel  into  another.  Only  by  the  con¬ 
templation  of  things  oneself,  can  insight  and  knowledge 
be  really  increased;  for  it  alone  is  the  living  source,  al¬ 
ways  ready,  and  always  at  hand.  It  is  curious  to  see 
how  would-be  philosophers  are  forever  occupied  with 
the  first  method,  and  seem  not  to  know  the  other  at  all, 
being  always  concerned  with  what  this  one  has  said  and 
with  what  that  one  may  have  meant.  So  that  they  are, 
as  it  were,  perpetually  turning  old  casks  upside  down  in 
order  to  see  whether  some  drop  may  not  have  remained 
behind,  while  the  living  wellspring  lies  neglected  at  their 
feet.  Nothing  so  much  as  this  betrays  their  incapacity, 
or  gives  the  lie  more  to  their  assumed  mien  of  impor¬ 
tance,  depth,  and  originality. 

Those  who  hope  to  become  philosophers  by  the  study 
of  the  history  of  philosophy  ought  to  conclude  from  it  that 
philosophers,  like  poets,  are  only  born,  and  that,  indeed, 
much  more  rarely. 

A  curious  and  unworthy  definition  of  philosophy  which 
even  Kant  gives,  is  that  it  is  a  science  of  mere  concepts. 
For  the  whole  property  of  concepts  is  only  what  has  been 
placed  in  them  after  it  has  been  begged  and  borrowed 
from  perceptual  knowledge,  the  real  and  inexhaustible 
source  of  insight.  Hence  a  true  philosophy  cannot  be 
spun  out  of  mere  abstract  concepts,  but  must  be  founded 
on  observation  and  experience,  inner  no  less  than  outer. 
It  is  not  by  attempts  at  the  combination  of  concepts  such 
as  has  been  so  often  practiced,  but  especially  by  the 
sophists  of  our  time,  by  Fichte  and  Schelling,  and  in  its 
worst  form  by  Hegel  ( in  <(  Morals  ®  also  by  Schleiermacher ) 
that  any  good  will  be  achieved  in  philosophy.  Like  art 
and  poetry,  it  must  have  its  source  in  our  perceptual 
view  of  the  world.  Moreover,  however  much  the  head 
ought  to  have  the  upper  hand,  it  must  not  be  treated  so 
cold-bloodedly,  but  that  at  last  the  whole  man  with  head 
and  heart  should  come  into  action,  and  be  stirred  through¬ 
out.  Philosophy  is  no  algebraic  formula.  Vauvenargues 
is  right  when  he  says :  “Les grande s pensdes  viennent  du  cceur. 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD 


243 


Considered  as  a  whole,  the  philosophy  of  all  times  may 
be  conceived  as  a  pendulum  which  swings  from  side  to 
side  between  Rationalism  and  Illuminism,  that  is,  be¬ 
tween  the  employment  of  the  objective  and  subjective 
sources  of  knowledge. 

Rationalism,  which  has  for  its  organ  the  intellect,  origi¬ 
nally  determined  for  the  service  of  the  Will,  and  there¬ 
fore  directed  outward,  appears  first  as  Dogmatism,  as 
which  it  maintains  a  completely  objective  attitude.  Then 
it  changes  to  Scepticism,  and  becomes  in  consequence 
finally  Criticism,  which  undertakes  to  settle  the  dispute 
by  a  consideration  of  the  subject;  in  other  words,  it  be¬ 
comes  transcendental  philosophy.  I  understand  by  this, 
every  philosophy  which  starts  from  the  proposition  that 
its  nearest  and  most  immediate  object  is  not  the  world 
of  things,  but  only  the  human  consciousness  of  the 
things,  and  that  this,  therefore,  can  never  be  left  out  of 
consideration.  The  French  call  this  rather  inexactly  the 
methode  psychologique ,  in  opposition  to  the  methode  pure- 
ment  logique ,  by  which  they  understand,  without  more 
ado,  the  philosophy  proceeding  from  objects,  or  objec¬ 
tively  thought  concepts,  in  short.  Dogmatism.  Having 
reached  this  point,  Rationalism  attains  to  the  knowledge 
that  its  organon  apprehends  only  the  phenomenon,  and 
does  not  reach  the  ultimate  inner  and  original  essence  of 
things. 

At  all  its  stages,  but  most  of  all  here,  Illuminism  asserts 
itself  as  its  antithesis.  Illuminism,  which  essentially 
turned  inward  has  as  its  organon  internal  illumination, 
intellectual  intuition,  higher  consciousness,  immediately- 
cognizing  Reason,  divine  consciousness,  etc.,  and  which 
contemns  Rationalism  as  the  “light  of  nature.  *  If  a 
religion,  it  is  Mysticism,  its  root-failing  being  that  its 
knowledge  is  not  mediate ;  partly  because  for  the  internal 
perception  there  is  no  criterion  of  the  identity  of  the 
objects  of  different  subjects;  partly  because  such  a  knowl¬ 
edge  would  have  to  be  communicated  by  language,  but 
the  latter,  which  has  arisen  for  the  sake  of  the  knowing 
faculty  of  the  Intellect,  as  directed  outward  by  means 
of  its  own  abstraction,  is  quite  unsuited  to  express  those 
internal  states  which  are  different  from  it,  and  which 


244 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


form  the  material  of  Illuminism.  The  latter  must,  there¬ 
fore,  construct  a  language  of  its  own,  which  again,  for 
the  reason  above  given,  does  not  work.  Not  being  medi¬ 
ate  a  knowledge  of  this  kind  is  undemonstrable,  the 
consequence  being  that  Rationalism  again  enters  the  field 
hand  in  hand  with  Scepticism.  Illuminism  is  already 
discoverable  in  certain  places  in  Plato;  but  it  appears 
more  distinctly  in  the  philosophy  of  the  Neo-Platonists, 
the  Gnostics,  in  that  of  Dionysius  Areopagita,  as  also  in 
Scotus  Erigena;  among  the  Mohammedans  in  the  doc¬ 
trines  of  the  Sufi;  in  India  it  is  dominant  in  the  Vedanta 
and  Mimansa;  but  most  distinctly  of  all  in  Jacob  Boehme, 
and  all  the  Christian  Mystics.  It  always  appears  when 
Rationalism  has  run  its  course  without  attaining  its  goal. 
Thus  it  came  toward  the  end  of  the  scholastic  phi¬ 
losophy  and  in  opposition  thereto,  especially  among  the 
Germans,  as  the  Mysticism  of  Tauler,  and  the  author  of 
the  <(  German  Theology  ®  among  others.  And,  similarly, 
in  modern  times  as  opposition  to  the  Kantian  philosophy 
in  Jacobi  and  Schelling,  also  in  Fichte’s  last  period. 
Philosophy,  however,  must  be  mediate  knowledge,  hence, 
Rationalism.  I  have  accordingly,  at  the  close  of  my  own 
philosophy,  indicated  the  sphere  of  Illuminism  as  present, 
but  have  taken  special  care  not  to  place  so  much  as  a 
foot  upon  it.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  not  even  attempted 
to  give  the  final  clues  to  the  existence  of  the  world,  but 
only  went  as  far  as  was  possible  on  the  objective  Ration¬ 
alistic  path.  I  have  left  the  ground  free  for  Illuminism 
to  solve  all  problems  in  its  own  fashion,  without  its  com¬ 
ing  in  my  way  or  having  to  polemicize  against  me. 

Meanwhile  a  hidden  Illuminism  may  often  enough  lie 
at  the  basis  of  Rationalism,  to  which  the  philosopher 
looks  as  to  a  hidden  compass,  while  he  only  admits  that 
he  steers  his  course  by  the  stars,  that  is,  the  external 
objects  which  lie  clearly  before  him,  and  that  he  takes 
them  alone  into  his  reckoning.  This  is  admissible,  since 
he  does  not  undertake  to  communicate  the  immediate 
knowledge,  his  communications  remaining  purely  objec¬ 
tive  and  rational.  Such  may  have  been  the  case  with 
Plato,  Spinoza,  Malebranche,  and  some  others;  it  does 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD 


245 


not  concern  any  one,  for  it  is  the  secret  of  their  own 
breast.  But  the  noisy  invocation  of  intellectual  intuition, 
and  the  barren  narration  of  its  content,  with  the  claim 
for  its  objective  validity,  as  in  the  case  of  Fichte  and 
Schelling,  is  shameless  and  abominable. 

For  the  rest,  Illuminism  is  a  natural,  and  in  so  far  a 
legitimate,  attempt  to  fathom  the  truth.  For  the  intellect 
directed  outward,  as  mere  organon  for  the  purposes  of 
the  Will,  and  consequently  merely  secondary,  is  never¬ 
theless  only  a  part  of  our  entire  human  nature.  It  be¬ 
longs  to  the  phenomenon,  and  its  knowledge  merely 
assumes  the  phenomenon,  which  is  there  only  for  its  own 
sake.  What  can  be  more  natural  than  that  when  we 
have  failed  to  succeed  with  the  objectivity-knowing  in¬ 
tellect  we  bring  into  play  our  whole  remaining  being  — 
which  is  also  Thing-in-itself,  and  as  such  pertains  to  the 
true  nature  of  the  world,  and  consequently  must  bear 
within  it  the  solution  of  all  problems  —  in  order  to  seek 
help  from  it,  just  as  the  ancient  Germans,  when  they 
had  played  away  everything  else,  finally  staked  their  own 
persons.  But  the  only  correct  and  objectively- valid  way 
of  carrying  this  out  is  that  we  apprehend  the  empirical 
fact  of  a  Will  proclaiming  itself  in  our  inmost  being,  and 
constituting  our  only  nature,  and  apply  it  to  the  expla¬ 
nation  of  our  objective,  external  knowledge,  as  I  have 
accordingly  done.  The  way  of  Illuminism,  on  the  other 
hand,  for  the  reasons  above  explained,  does  not  lead  to 
this  goal. 

Mere  cleverness  suffices  for  the  sceptic  but  not  for  the 
philosopher.  Meanwhile  scepticism  is  in  philosophy  what 
opposition  is  in  Parliament;  it  is  as  beneficial  as  it  is 
necessary.  Is  is  always  based  on  the  fact  that  philoso¬ 
phy  is  not  capable  of  evidence  of  such  a  kind  as  Mathe¬ 
matics;  just  as  little  as  the  man  is  capable  of  the  tricks 
of  animal  instinct  which  are  also  certain  a  priori.  Hence 
scepticism  will  ever  be  able,  as  against  every  system,  to 
lay  itself  in  the  other  scale.  But  its  weight  will  at  last 
become  so  little  against  the  other  that  it  will  no  more 
hurt  it  than  the  arithmetical  quadrature  of  the  circle, 
which  is  also  only  approximative. 


246 


SCHOPENHAUER'S  ESSAYS 


That  which  one  knows  has  a  double  value,  if  at  the 
same  time  one  admits  oneself  not  to  know  that  which 
one  does  not  know.  For  thereby  the  former  is  free 
from  the  suspicion  to  which  one  exposes  it,  if,  like  for 
instance  the  Schellingites,  one  proposes  also  to  know 
what  one  does  not  know. 

Every  one  forms  certain  propositions  which  he  holds 
for  true  without  investigation,  declarations  of  reason. 
Such  propositions  he  could  not  bring  himself  seriously  to 
test,  since  this  would  involve  his  calling  them  in  ques¬ 
tion  for  the  nonce.  They  have  come  into  this  unshake- 
able  credit  with  him  because  ever  since  he  began  to 
speak  and  to  think  he  has  heard  them  perpetually  spoken 
of,  and  they  have  thereby  become  indoctrinated  into 
him.  Hence  his  habit  of  thinking  them  is  as  old  as  his 
habit  of  thinking  at  all;  they  have  grown  up  into  his 
brain.  What  is  here  said  is  so  true  that  it  would,  on 
the  one  hand,  be  superfluous,  and  on  the  other,  of 
doubtful  desirability,  to  substantiate  it  with  examples. 

No  conception  of  the  world  which  has  arisen  from  an 
objective  perceptual  apprehension  of  things,  and  which 
has  been  logically  carried  out,  can  be  entirely  false; 
it  is  in  the  worst  case  only  one-sided,  as  for  instance 
complete  Materialism,  absolute  Idealism,  etc.  They  are 
all  true,  but  they  are  equally  so  —  consequently  their 
truth  is  only  relative.  Every  such  conception  is  true, 
namely,  only  from  a  particular  standpoint;  just  as  a  pic¬ 
ture  only  displays  a  landscape  from  one  point  of  view. 
But  if  one  lifts  oneself  above  the  standpoint  of  such  a 
system  one  recognizes  the  relativity  of  its  truth,  that  is, 
its  one-sidedness.  Only  the  highest  standpoint  which 
overlooks  and  takes  into  account  all,  can  furnish  absolute 
truth.  It  is  true,  accordingly,  when  I,  for  example,  con¬ 
ceive  myself  as  a  mere  natural  product  arisen  in  time, 
and  destined  to  complete  destruction  —  after  the  manner 
of  the  Koheleth. 

But  it  is  equally  true  that  everything  that  was  or  will 
be,  I  am,  and  that  nothing  exists  outside  me.  It  is  just 
as  true,  when  I,  after  the  manner  of  Anakreon,  place 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD 


247 


the  highest  happiness  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  present 
time,  but  it  is  equally  true  when  I  recognize  the  whole¬ 
someness  of  suffering,  and  the  nothingness,  nay,  the  in¬ 
juriousness,  of  all  pleasure,  and  conceive  death  as  the 
object  of  my  existence. 

All  this  has  its  reason  in  that  each  view  logically  carried 
out  is  only  a  perceptual  and  objective  apprehension  of 
nature  translated  into  concepts,  and  thereby  fixated;  but 
nature,  i.  e ,  the  perceptual,  never  lies  nor  contradicts  it¬ 
self  since  its  essence  excludes  any  such  thing.  Where, 
therefore,  contradiction  and  lie  are,  there  are  thoughts 
which  have  not  sprung  from  objective  apprehension  —  e.  g., 
optimism.  But  an  objective  apprehension  may  be  incom¬ 
plete  and  one-sided ;  it  then  requires  completion,  not 
refutation. 

People  are  never  tired  of  reproaching  Metaphysics  with 
its  small  progress  in  view  of  the  great  progress  of  the 
Physical  sciences.  Even  Voltaire  exclaims:  wO  meta-phy¬ 
sique  !  nous  sommes  aussi  avances  que  du  terns  des  premiers 
Druides”  ((<  Mel.  d.  phil.,w  ch.  9).  But  what  other  science 
has  like  it  always  had  as  a  hindrance  an  antagonist,  ex 
officio ,  a  paid  fiscal  prosecutor,  a  king’s  champion  in  full 
armor,  to  attack  it  defenseless  and  weaponless  ?  It  will 
never  show  its  true  powers,  never  be  able  to  make  its 
giant-strides,  so  long  as  it  is  required  of  it  with  threats, 
that  it  shall  suit  itself  to  dogmas  cut  out  with  a  view  to 
the  small  capacity  of  the  great  mass.  They  first  bind  our 
arms,  and  then  mock  us  because  we  cannot  accomplish 
anything. 

Religions  have  seized  upon  the  metaphysical  faculties 
of  men,  which  they  first  of  all  lame  by  the  early  instill¬ 
ing  of  their  dogmas,  respecting  which  they  taboo  all  free 
and  unprejudiced  expressions  of  opinion,  so  that  free  re¬ 
search  respecting  the  most  important  and  interesting  of 
problems,  respecting  man’s  existence  itself,  is  in  part 
directly  forbidden,  in  part  indirectly  hindered,  being 
rendered  subjectively  well-nigh  impossible  by  mutilation, 
and  thus  the  most  noble  of  man’s  faculties  lies  in  fetters. 

In  order  to  make  us  patient  under  contradiction,  and 


248 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


tolerant  of  views  opposed  to  our  own,  nothing  is,  perhaps, 
more  powerful  than  the  remembrance  how  often  we  have 
successively  held  quite  opposite  views  on  the  same  sub¬ 
ject,  and  have  changed  them  repeatedly,  sometimes,  indeed, 
within  a  very  short  period,  how  we  have  rejected  and 
again  taken  up,  now  this  opinion,  now  its  opposite,  ac¬ 
cording  as  the  subject  presented  itself  to  us,  now  in  one, 
now  in  another  light. 

In  the  same  way  there  is  nothing  more  calculated  to 
procure  acceptance  with  another  for  our  contradiction  of 
his  own  opinion  than  the  phrase,  (<  I  used  to  think  the 
same  myself,  but,®  etc. 

A  fallacious  doctrine,  whether  founded  on  a  false  opin¬ 
ion  or  sprung  from  a  bad  intention,  is  only  designed  for 
special  circumstances,  and  consequently  for  a  certain 
time;  but  the  truth  is  for  all  time,  even  though  it  may 
be  misunderstood  or  smothered  for  a  while.  For  as  soon 
as  a  little  light  comes  from  within,  or  a  little  air  from 
without,  some  one  will  be  found  to  proclaim  or  to  defend 
it.  For  since  it  has  not  originated  in  the  interests  of 
any  party,  every  superior  mind  will  be  its  champion  at 
any  time.  It  resembles  the  magnet  which  always  and 
everywhere  points  to  an  absolutely  definite  part  of  the 
compass;  the  false  doctrine,  on  the  contrary,  resembles 
a  statue  which  points  with  the  hand  toward  another 
statue,  but  once  removed  from  it  loses  all  significance. 

What  stands  most  in  the  way  of  the  discovery  of  truth 
is  not  the  false  appearance  proceeding  from  the  things 
and  leading  to  error,  nor  even  directly  the  weakness  of 
the  understanding;  but  it  is  the  preconceived  opinion, 
the  prejudice  which  as  a  bastard  a  priori,  opposes  itself 
to  the  truth,  and  then  resembles  a  contrary  wind  which 
drives  the  ship  back  from  the  direction  in  which  the  land 
lies,  so  that  rudder  and  sail  work  in  vain. 

I  comment  as  follows  on  Goethe’s  verse  in  (<  Faust  ®  ; 

<(What  thou  hast  inherited  from  thy  fathers 
Inherit  it  in  order  to  possess  it.» 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD 


249 


That  which  thinkers  have  discovered  before  us,  it  is  of 
great  service  and  value  to  ourselves  to  discover  by  our 
own  means,  independently  of  them,  and  before  we  know 
them,  for  one  understands  what  one  has  thought  out  for 
oneself  much  more  thoroughly  than  what  one  has  learned, 
and  when  one  afterward  finds  it  with  these  predeces¬ 
sors,  one  receives  an  unhoped-for  confirmation,  speak¬ 
ing  strongly  for  its  truth  from  an  independent  and 
recognized  authority.  In  this  way  one  gains  confi¬ 
dence  and  assurance  to  champion  it  against  every  op¬ 
ponent. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  one  has  found  something 
first  of  all  in  books,  and  then  attained  the  same  result 
by  one’s  own  reflection,  one  never  knows  for  certain  that 
one  has  thought  and  reasoned  this  out  oneself,  and  not 
merely  been  the  echo  in  one’s  feelings,  or  one’s  speech, 
of  these  predecessors.  But  this  makes  a  very  great  differ¬ 
ence  in  respect  to  the  certainty  of  the  matter.  For  in 
the  latter  case  it  may  happen  that  one  has  erred  with 
one’s  predecessors  owing  to  one’s  preoccupation  with 
them,  just  as  water  readily  takes  to  a  ready-made  course. 
If  two  persons,  each  for  themselves,  make  a  calculation 
and  reach  the  same  result,  the  result  is  certain,  but  not 
when  the  calculation  has  merely  been  looked  through  by 
the  other. 

It  is  a  consequence  of  the  construction  of  our  Intellect, 
sprung  as  it  is  from  the  Will,  that  we  cannot  help  con¬ 
ceiving  the  world  either  as  end  or  as  means.  The  first 
would  assert  that  its  existence  was  justified  by  its  essence, 
and  was  definitely  preferable  to  its  nonexistence.  But 
the  knowledge  that  it  is  only  a  place  of  struggle  for 
suffering  and  dying  beings  renders  this  idea  untenable. 
Again,  the  infinity  of  Time  already  passed  does  not  admit 
of  its  being  conceived  as  means,  for  every  end  to  be 
obtained  would  long  ago  have  been  accomplished.  From 
this  it  follows  that  the  foregoing  application  of  the  nat¬ 
ural  presupposition  of  our  intellect  to  the  whole  of 
things,  or  to  the  world,  is  transcendent,  that  is,  it  is 
valid  in  the  world,  but  not  of  the  world.  This  is  explic¬ 
able  from  the  fact  that  it  arises  from  the  nature  of  an 


250 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


Intellect,  which  as  I  have  shown  has  itself  arisen  for  the 
service  of  an  individual  Will,  i. e. ,  for  the  attainment  of 
its  objects,  and  hence  being  exclusively  concerned  with 
ends  and  means,  neither  knows  nor  conceives  of  anything 
else. 

When  we  look  outward,  where  the  immeasurableness 
of  the  world  and  the  countlessness  of  its  beings  display 
themselves  to  us,  oneself  as  mere  individual  shrinks 
up  to  nothing  and  seems  to  vanish.  Carried  away  by 
the  immensity  of  mass  and  number,  one  thinks  further 
that  only  the  philosophy  directed  outward,  that  is,  the 
objective  philosophy,  can  be  the  right  way,  and  to 
doubt  as  to  this  never  occurred  to  the  oldest  Greek 
philosopher. 

Let  us  now  look  inward.  We  find,  in  the  first  place, 
that  every  individual  takes  an  immediate  interest  only 
in  himself,  indeed  that  his  self  he  takes  more  to  heart 
than  all  else  put  together;  which  comes  from  the  fact 
that  he  knows  himself  immediately  but  everything  else 
only  mediately.  If  one  adds  to  this  that  conscious  and 
knowing  beings  are  thinkable  solely  as  individuals,  and 
that  beings  without  consciousness  have  only  a  half,  a 
mere  mediate  existence,  it  follows  that  all  proper  and  true 
existence  obtains  only  in  the  individual.  If,  finally,  one 
considers  that  the  object  is  conditioned  by  the  subject, 
and  that,  therefore,  this  immeasurable  outer  world  has 
its  existence  only  in  the  consciousness  of  knowing  be¬ 
ings  and,  consequently,  is  bound  up  with  the  existence 
of  individuals  which  are  its  bearers,  so  much  so  that  in 
a  sense  it  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  mere  equipment,  an 
accident  of  the  always  individual  consciousness;  if  one 
I  say,  keeps  all  this  in  view  one  is  driven  to  the  opinion 
that  only  the  philosophy  which  is  directed  inward  pro¬ 
ceeding  from  the  subject  as  immediately  given  —  in 
other  words,  that  of  the  modern,  since  Descartes  —  is  on 
the  right  way,  and  that  the  Ancients  have  overlooked 
the  main  points.  But  one  first  receives  the  complete  convic¬ 
tion  of  this,  when  turning  within  upon  oneself,  one  brings 
to  one’s  consciousness  the  feeling  of  origination  which 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD 


251 


lies  in  every  knowing  being.  More  than  this,  everyone, 
even  the  most  insignificant  human  being,  finds  in  his 
simple  self-consciousness  himself  as  the  most  real  of  all 
beings,  and  recognizes  necessarily  in  himself  the  true 
centre  of  the  world,  the  ultimate  source  of  all  reality. 
And  does  this  ultimate  consciousness  lie  ?  Its  most  pow¬ 
erful  expression  is  to  be  found  in  the  words  of  the  Upan- 
ishad:  (<hae  omnes  creaturae  in  totum  ego  sum,  et  praster 
me  ens  aliud  non  est,  et  omnia  ego  creata  feci  ®  (“Oupnekh,” 
i. ,  p.  122),  which  is  certainly  there  the  transition  to 
Illuminism,  or  indeed,  to  Mysticism.  This  is,  therefore, 
the  result  of  contemplation  directed  inward;  while  that 
directed  outward  shows  us  as  the  goal  of  our  existence 
—  a  heap  of  ashes.* 

Respecting  the  division  of  philosophy,  which  is  of  spe¬ 
cial  importance  with  regard  to  its  exposition,  it  should, 
from  my  point  of  view,  be  treated  as  follows: 

Philosophy,  indeed,  has  experience  for  its  subject,  but 
not,  like  the  other  sciences,  this  or  that  definite  experi¬ 
ence,  but  experience  itself  generally  and  as  such,  accord¬ 
ing  to  its  possibility,  its  range,  its  essential  content,  its 
inner  and  outer  element,  its  form  and  matter.  That 
philosophy  must  assuredly  have  empirical  foundations, 
and  not  be  spun  out  of  purely  abstract  conceptions,  I 
have  adequately  explained  in  the  second  volume  of  my 
chief  work,  chap,  xvii.,  pp.  180-185  (3ded.,  199  seq.),  and 
have  given  a  short  resume  of  it  above.  Hence  it  follows 
further  that  the  first  thing  which  it  has  to  contemplate 
must  be  the  medium  in  which  experience-in-general  pre¬ 
sents  itself,  together  with  its  form  and  construction.  This 
medium  is  presentment,  knowledge,  in  short,  intellect. 
For  this  reason  every  philosophy  must  begin  with  the 
investigation  of  the  faculty  of  knowledge,  its  forms  and 

♦Finite  and  infinite  are  concepts,  having  significance  merely  in 
respect  of  time  and  space,  inasmuch  as  both  these  are  infinite, 
endless,  as  also  infinitely  divisible.  If  we  apply  these  two  concepts 
to  other  things  it  must  be  to  such  things  as  fill  space  and  time,  and 
can  participate  in  their  qualities.  From  this  it  may  be  judged  how 
great  is  the  abuse  which  philosophasters  have  in  this  century  carried 
on  with  these  concepts. 


252 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


its  laws,  as  also  its  validity  and  limits.  Such  an  investi¬ 
gation  will,  therefore,  be  a  Philosophia  prima.  It  falls 
asunder  into  the  consideration  of  the  primary,  i.  e. ,  per¬ 
ceptual  presentments,  which  part  may  be  called  Dianoi- 
alogy,  or  doctrine  of  the  Understanding;  and  into  the 
consideration  of  the  secondary,  i.e.,  abstract  presentments, 
together  with  the  order  of  their  treatment  as  logic,  or 
doctrine  of  Reason  This  universal  part  conceives,  or 
rather  represents,  that  which  was  formerly  termed  Ontol¬ 
ogy,  and  which  was  put  forward  as  the  doctrine  of  the 
most  universal  and  essential  qualities  of  things  in  gen¬ 
eral,  and  as  such;  inasmuch  as  what  only  accrues  to 
things  in  consequence  of  the  form  and  nature  of  our 
faculty  of  presentment  —  since  all  essences  to  be  appre¬ 
hended  by  the  latter  must  present  themselves  in  accord¬ 
ance  therewith,  whereby  they  bear  certain  characteristics 
common  to  them  all  —  were  held  to  be  the  qualities  of 
the  things  in  themselves.  This  may  be  compared  to 
attributing  the  color  of  a  glass  to  the  objects  seen 
through  it. 

The  philosophy  following  upon  such  investigation  is  in 
the  narrower  sense  of  the  word  Metaphysics,  since  it  not 
only  teaches  us  to  know  that  which  is  actually  present, 
nature  conceived  in  its  order  and  connection,  but  it 
apprehends  it  as  a  given,  though  in  some  way,  condi¬ 
tioned  phenomenon,  in  which  a  being  distinct  from  itself, 
in  other  words,  the  thing-in-itself,  displays  itself.  This 
it  endeavors  to  learn  more  closely,  the  means  thereto 
being  partly  the  bringing  together  of  outer  and  inner 
experience ;  partly  the  attainment  of  an  understanding  of 
the  whole  phenomenon  by  a  discovery  of  its  meaning 
and  connection,  to  compare  the  reading  of  the  hitherto 
indecipherable  characters  of  an  unknown  writing.  In 
this  way  it  attains  from  the  appearance  to  the  thing 
appearing,  to  that  which  is  hidden  behind  it,  hence  rd 
pera  ra  <f>o<nnd .  It  may  be  divided  in  consequence  into 
three  parts: 

<(  Metaphysic  of  Nature, 

Metaphysic  of  the  Beautiful, 

Metaphysic  of  Morals. » 


ON  PHILOSOPHY  AND  ITS  METHOD 


253 


The  deduction  of  this  division,  however,  presupposes 
Metaphysics.  For  this  points  to  the  thing-in-itself,  the 
inner  and  ultimate  essence  of  the  phenomenon,  as  our 
Will.  Hence,  after  a  consideration  of  it  as  presented  in 
external  nature.  Metaphysic  investigates  its  quite  dif¬ 
ferent  and  immediate  manifestation  in  ourselves,  whence 
proceed  the  Metaphysic  of  Morals.  But,  previously  to 
this,  the  completest  and  purest  apprehension  of  its 
external  or  objective  phenomenon  is  taken  into  con¬ 
sideration  which  give  us  the  Metaphysic  of  the  Beau¬ 
tiful. 

Rational  Psychology,  or  doctrine  of  the  soul,  there  is 
not;  for,  as  Kant  has  proved,  the  soul  is  a  transcendent, 
and  as  such,  an  undemonstrated  and  unjustified  hypos¬ 
tasis,  so  that  the  antithesis  of  (<  spirit  and  nature  n  is  left 
for  the  Philistines  and  Hegelians.  The  essence  in  itself 
of  the  human  being  can  only  be  understood  in  conjunc¬ 
tion  with  the  essence  in  itself  of  all  things,  that  is,  of 
the  world.  Hence  Plato,  in  the  (<  Phaedrus,”  makes 
Socrates  put  the  question  in  a  negative  sense:  Vox jy?  ouv 
ipoffiv  dfcw?  Xoyoo  Karavorjaat  ocec  dovardv  etvac  aveo  T7j$  rod  0X00 
<puffsaj<z ;  ( Animce  vero  naturam  absque  totius  natura  sufficient er 
cognosci posse  existiinas  ?)  The  Microcosm  and  the  Macro¬ 
cosm  reciprocally  explain  each  other,  whereby  they  evince 
themselves  as  essentially  the  same.  This  consideration, 
connected  with  the  inner  side  of  man,  interpenetrates  and 
suffuses  the  whole  of  Metaphysic  in  all  its  parts  and 
cannot,  such  being  the  case,  again  appear  separately  as 
Psychology.  Anthropology,  on  the  other  hand,  as  an 
empirical  science  has  its  justification,  but  it  is  partly 
anatomy  and  physiology,  partly  mere  empirical  Psychol¬ 
ogy,  that  is,  a  knowledge  of  the  moral  and  intellectual 
manifestations  and  peculiarities  of  the  human  race,  as 
also  of  the  variation  of  individuals  in  this  respect,  de¬ 
rived  from  observation.  The  most  important  part  of  it 
is,  nevertheless,  necessary  as  empirical  material  to  be 
taken  up  and  worked  out  by  the  three  parts  of  Meta¬ 
physic.  What  remains  over  requires  fine  observation  and 
intelligent  apprehension,  indeed,  a  contemplation  from  a 
somewhat  higher  standpoint,  I  mean  from  that  of  a  cer- 


254 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


tain  superiority,  and  is,  therefore,  only  to  be  enjoyed 
in  the  writings  of  specially  gifted  minds,  such  as 
Theophrastus,  Montaigne,  Larochefoucauld,  Labruyere, 
Helvetius,  Chamfort,  Addison,  Shaftesbury,  Shenstone, 
Lichtenberg,  etc.,  but  is  not  to  be  sought  nor  to 
be  endured  in  the  compendiums  of  unintelligent, 
and  therefore  intelligence-hating,  professors  of  philoso¬ 
phy. 


SOME  REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  ANTITHESIS  OF 
THING-IN-ITSELF  AND  PHENOMENON. 


Thing-in-itself  signifies  the  existent  independently  of 
our  perception,  in  short,  that  which  properly  is.  This 
was,  for  Demokritus,  formed  matter.  It  was  the  same  at 
bottom  for  Locke;  for  Kant  it  was  =  x;  for  me  it  is  Will. 

How  entirely  Demokritus  took  the  matter  in  the  above 
sense,  and  hence  belongs  at  the  head  of  this  exposition, 
is  confirmed  by  the  following  passage  from  (<  Sextus  Em¬ 
piricus  ®  (Adv.  Math.  1.  vii.,  §  135),  who  had  his  works  be¬ 
fore  him,  and  for  the  most  part,  cites  verbally  from  them : 

ATjjionpiTos  8e  bzt  pbv  avaipti  r  a  (patvopeva  zal?  a!<T&7j<TE<riv,  uch 
zoozwv  Xiysi  prjdkv  <pa{v£<T#ai  kclt  aXrjd-Eiav ,  povov  Kara  do£av‘ 

aXjjftES  dk  bv  rot?  ob<nv  bnag^Etv  zb  azopoos  slvcu  /cat  kevov ,  etc. 
(. Demokritus  aute7n  ea  quidem  tollit ,  qu<2  apparent  sensibus , 
et  ex  iis  dicit  nihil  ut  vere  est  apparere ,  sed  solum  ex  opin- 
ione ;  verum  autem  esse  in  iis ,  quce  sunt ,  atomos  et  inane.} 
I  recommend  the  reader  to  look  over  the  whole  passage 
where  also  the  following  occurs:  bzsij  vov  o\ov  bnaazov  egzcv,  rj 
oun  egziv,  ou  GuviEpEv '  quidem  nos,  quale  sit  vel  not  sit 

unumquodque ,  neutiquam  intelligimus ),  also:  bzEy  olov  Znaczov 
(egt  t)  yiyvuiffKEiv  iv  and  pm  egtc  {vere  scire  quale  sit  unum 
quodque ,  in  dubio  est).  All  this  is  as  much  as  to  say:  <(We 
do  not  know  the  things  as  they  may  be  in  themselves, 
but  only  as  they  appear,®  and  opens  up  the  series  start¬ 
ing  from  the  most  decided  Materialism  but  leading  to 
Idealism,  which  closes  with  me.  A  surprisingly  clear  and 
definite  distinction  between  the  thing-in-itself  and  the 
phenomenon,  even  in  the  Kantian  sense,  we  find  in  a  pas¬ 
sage  of  Porphyry  which  Stobaeos  has  preserved  ( (<  Eclog. ,  ® 
L.  I.,  c.  43,  Fragm.  3).  It  Says,  Ta  nazTjyopobpEva.  too 
ataftrjzoo  nai  bvbXoo  bazi  zabza,  zo  navzr]  slvac  diaTtE<popr)p(vov , 

to  pEza^Xr/zov  e7 vat,  etc.  Too  db  ovzu)?  ovzo$  ncu  natf  abzb  6<pEGzrj- 
kozo$  abzoo,  zb  eIvui  cle'i  bv  baozw  Idpuplvov’  <l)<ra6zws  zo  nazd  zabza 

b'x£tv,  etc. 


(255) 


256 


SCHOPENHAUER’S,.  ESSAYS 


As  we  only  know  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  not  the 
great  solid  mass  of  the  interior,  so  we  know  nothing 
whatever  empirically  of  things  and  the  world,  but  only 
of  their  phenomenon,  i.e.,  their  surface.  The  exact 
knowlege  of  this  is  Physics  taken  in  its  widest  sense. 
But  that  this  surface  presupposes  an  interior  which  is  not 
mere  surface,  but  has  a  cubic  content,  is,  together  with 
the  conclusions  as  to  its  nature,  the  subject  of  Meta¬ 
physics.  To  attempt  to  construct  the  nature  of  things 
in  themselves,  according  to  the  laws  of  the  mere  phe¬ 
nomenon,  is  an  undertaking  which  may  be  compared  to 
the  attempt  to  construct  from  mere  surfaces  and  their 
laws  the  stereometric  body.  Every  transcendent  dogmatic 
philosophy  is  an  attempt  to  construct  the  thing-in-itself 
according  to  the  laws  of  the  phenomenon  which  results 
similarly  to  that  of  attempting  to  cover  two  absolutely 
dissimilar  figures  with  one  another,  which  must  always 
miscarry,  since,  turn  them  as  one  will,  now  this,  now  that, 
corner  projects. 

Inasmuch  as  every  being  in  nature  is  at  the  same  time 
a  phenomenon  and  a  thing-in-itself,  that  is,  natura 
naturata  and  7iatura  naturans ,  it  is  capable  of  a  double 
explanation,  a  physical  and  a  metaphysical.  The  phys¬ 
ical  is  always  from  the  cause;  the  metaphysical  always 
from  the  Will;  for  this  it  is  which  displays  itself  in 
consciousless  nature  as  natural  force,  higher  up,  as  vital 
force,  but  in  animal  and  man  receives  the  name  Will. 
Taken  strictly,  in  a  given  human  being,  the  degree  and 
the  direction  of  his  intelligence,  and  the  moral  construc¬ 
tion  of  his  character,  might  possibly  be  purely  physically 
produced,  the  first,  viz,  from  the  structure  of  his  brain 
and  nervous  system,  together  with  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  which  affects  it,  the  latter  from  the  structure  and 
combined  action  of  his  heart,  cellular  system,  blood, 
lungs,  liver,  spleen,  kidneys,  intestines,  genital  organs, 
etc.,  but  for  this  would  certainly  be  requisite  a  much 
closer  acquaintance  with  the  laws  which  regulate  the 
rapport  dn  physique  au  moral  than  even  Bichat  and  Cabanis 
possessed.  Both  would  then  be  reducible  to  more  distant 
physical  causes,  to  wit,  the  structure  of  his  parents,  since 


OF  THING-IN-ITSELF  AND  PHENOMENON 


257 


these  could  only  furnish  the  germ  of  a  being  like  them¬ 
selves,  but  not  of  a  higher  and  better  one.  Metaphysic¬ 
ally,  on  the  other  hand,  the  same  human  being  must 
be  explained  as  the  phenomenon  of  his  own  perfectly 
free  and  original  Will,  which  has  created  in  him  the 
corresponding  intellect.  Hence  all  his  deeds,  however 
necessarily  they  proceed  from  his  character,  in  conflict 
with  the  given  motive  ( and  this  again  appears  as  the 
result  of  his  corporization),  are  nevertheless  to  be  wholly 
attributed  to  him.  Metaphysically,  moreover,  the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  him  and  his  parents  is  not  an  absolute 
one. 

All  understanding  is  an  act  of  presenting,  and  re¬ 
mains,  therefore,  essentially  within  the  domain  of  pre¬ 
sentment;  but  since  this  only  furnishes  phenomena  it  is 
limited  to  the  phenomenon,  where  the  thing-in-itself 
begins  the  phenomenon  leaves  off,  consequently  also  the 
presentment,  and  with  this  the  understanding-.  But  its 
place  is  here  taken  by  the  existent  itself,  which  is  con¬ 
scious  of  itself  as  Will.  Were  this  self-consciousness 
immediate  we  should  have  a  completely  adequate  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  thing-in-itself.  But  because  it  is  thereby 
rendered  possible  that  the  Will  creates  this  organic  body, 
and  by  means  of  part  of  the  same  an  intellect,  and  finds 
and  recognizes  itself  first  through  this,  in  self-conscious¬ 
ness  as  Will  —  it  follows  that  this  knowledge  of  the 
thing-in-itself  is  primarily  conditioned  by  the  separation 
of  a  knowing  and  a  known,  and  then  by  the  form  of  time, 
which  is  inseparable  from  the  cerebral  self-conscious¬ 
ness,  and  that  it  is  hence  not  completely  exhausted  and 
adequate.  (Compare  chap,  xviii.  in  2d  vol.  of  my  chief 
work.)* 

*The  distinction  between  the  thing-in-itself  and  the  phenomenon 
may  be  expressed  as  that  between  the  subjective  and  objective 
essence  of  a  thing.  Its  pure  subjective  essence  is  the  thing-in-itself, 
but  this  is  no  object  of  knowledge.  For  in  order  to  be  such  it  is 
essential  that  it  should  always  be  present  in  a  knowing  consciousness 
as  its  presentment,  and  what  displays  itself  there  is  the  objective 
essence  of  the  thing.  This  is  accordingly  object  of  knowledge,  but 
as  such  it  is  mere  presentment,  and  as  it  can  only  become  so  by  means 
of  a  presentment-apparatus  which  must  have  its  own  structure  and 
the  laws  resulting  therefrom,  it  is  a  mere  phenomenon  which  must 

17 


258 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


With  this  is  connected  the  truth  presented  by  me  in 
my  Essay  on  “Will  in  Nature,®  under  the  heading  <(  Phy¬ 
sical  Astronomy,®  p.  86  (2d  ed.,  p.  79;  3d  ed. ,  p.  86): 
that  in  proportion  to  the  clearness  with  which  a  proc¬ 
ess  or  relation  may  be  comprehended,  does  it  pertain 
to  the  mere  phenomenon  and  not  to  the  thing-in-itself. 

When  we  observe  and  contemplate  any  natural  being, 
as  for  instance  an  animal,  in  its  existence,  life,  and 
action,  it  stands  before  us,  in  spite  of  all  that  zoology 
and  zootomy  teach  respecting  it,  as  an  impenetrable 
mystery.  But  does  nature,  then,  from  mere  obstinacy 
remain  eternally  dumb  to  our  questioning  ?  Is  it  not  like 
everything  great,  open,  communicative,  and  even  naive  ? 
Can  its  answer,  therefore,  fail  from  any  other  reason 
than  because  the  question  was  wrongly  put,  was  one-sided, 
proceeded  from  false  assumptions,  or  perhaps,  even  con¬ 
tained  a  contradiction  ?  For  is  it  easy  to  think  that  a 
connection  of  causes  and  consequences  could  obtain  where 
it  must  eternally  and  essentially  remain  undiscovered  ? 
That  assuredly  not.  But  it  is  unfathomable,  because  we 
search  for  causes  and  effects  in  a  region  to  which  this 
form  is  foreign,  and  hence  we  pursue  the  chain  of  causes 
and  effects  on  an  entirely  wrong  track.  We  seek  to  attain 
the  inner  essence  of  nature,  namely,  which  confronts  us 
in  every  phenomenon  on  the  lines  of  the  principle  of 
cause  —  whereas  this  is  the  mere  form  with  which  our 
intellect  apprehends  the  phenomenon,  i.e .,  the  surface  of 

connect  itself  with  the  thing-in-itself.  This  obtains  also  where  there 
exists  a  self-consciousness,  that  is,  a  self-cognizing  I.  For  this  also 
knows  itself  only  in  its  intellect,  i.  e.,  its  apparatus  of  presentment, 
and  indeed  through  the  external  senses  as  organic  form,  by  the  inter¬ 
nal  as  Will  whose  acts  it  sees  as  simultaneously  repeated  by  that 
form  as  the  latter  is  by  its  shadow,  whence  it  concludes  as  to  the 
identity  of  both  and  terms  the  result  I.  But  on  account  of  this  double 
knowledge,  as  well  as  on  account  of  the  great  proximity  in  which  the 
intellect  here  stands  to  its  source  or  root,  the  Will,  the  knowledge  of 
objective  being,  that  is,  of  the  phenomenon,  differs  here  much  less 
from  the  subjective  or  thing-in-itself  than  in  the  case  of  knowledge  by 
means  of  the  external  sense  or  the  consciousness  of  other  things  in 
opposition  to  self-consciousness.  For  to  this,  in  so  far  as  the  internal 
sense  alone  cognizes  it,  the  form  of  time  alone  cleaves,  and  no  longer 
that  of  space  and  time  together,  time  therefore  and  the  separation 
of  subject  and  object  is  all  that  divides  it  from  the  thing-in-itself. 


OF  THING-IN-ITSELF  AND  PHENOMENON  259 


things,  and  we  expect  by  this  means  to  get  beyond  the 
phenomenon.  But  within  the  range  of  the  phenomenon 
it  is  useful  and  sufficient.  For  example,  the  actuality  of 
a  given  animal  may  be  explained  from  its  generation. 
This  in  the  last  resort  is  no  more  mysterious  than  the 
sequence  of  any  other,  even  the  simplest  effect,  from  its 
cause,  since  even  in  such  a  case  the  explanation  abutts 
ultimately  upon  the  incomprehensible.  The  fact  that  in 
generation  a  few  middle  links  in  the  chain  of  connection 
fail  us  makes  no  difference  essentially,  for  even  if  we 
had  them  we  should  still  come  back  to  the  incompre¬ 
hensible.  All  this  is  because  the  phenomenon  remains 
phenomenon  and  does  not  become  thing-in-itself. 

The  inner  essence  of  things  is  foreign  to  the  principle 
of  cause.  It  is  the  thing-in-itself,  and  that  is  pure  Will. 
It  is  because  it  wills  and  it  wills  because  it  is.  It  is  the 
simple  Real  in  every  being. 

The  fundamental  character  of  all  things  is  perishability. 
We  see  everything  in  nature  from  the  metal  to  the  organ¬ 
ism  consuming  and  destroying  itself,  partly  by  its  very 
existence,  partly  by  conflict  with  something  else.  How 
could  nature  endure  the  maintaining  of  its  form,  and  the 
renewing  of  its  individuals,  the  countless  repetition  of  its 
life  process  throughout  an  endless  time  without  tiring,  if 
its  own  innermost  core  were  not  timeless,  and  hence 
completely  indestructible,  a  thing-in-itself  of  a  kind  quite 
other  than  its  phenomena  —  a  metaphysical  thing  quite 
distinct  from  the  physical  thing  ?  This  is  the  Will  in  our¬ 
selves  and  in  all  things. 

We  complain  of  the  obscurity  in  which  we  live  without 
understanding  the  connection  of  existence  in  the  whole, 
and  above  all,  not  even  of  our  own  self  with  the  whole; 
so  that  not  only  is  our  life  short,  but  our  knowledge  is 
exclusively  limited  to  it,  since  we  can  neither  look  back¬ 
ward  beyond  our  birth,  nor  forward  beyond  our  death, 
and  hence  our  consciousness  is  but  a  flash  of  lightning 
that  momentarily  illumines  the  night.  It  would  seem, 
indeed,  as  though  a  spiteful  demon  had  closed  up  for  us 
all  further  knowledge  that  he  might  enjoy  our  embar¬ 
rassment.  But  this  complaint  is,  properly  speaking, 


26o 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


unjustified,  for  it  springs  from  an  illusion  which  is  brought 
about  by  the  fallacious  opinion  that  the  totality  of  things 
has  proceeded  from  an  intellect,  consequently,  existed 
as  mere  presentment  before  it  became  real;  and  that 
accordingly  having  arisen  from  knowledge,  it  must  be 
also  accessible  to  knowledge,  and  penetrable  and  exhaust¬ 
ible  by  it.  But,  in  truth,  the  matter  stands  rather  thus, 
that  all  that  which  we  complain  that  we  do  not  know,  is 
known  to  no  one,  is  indeed  in  itself  not  knowable,  i.  e., 
not  presentable.  For  the  presentment  in  the  domain  of 
which  all  knowledge  lies,  and  to  which  therefore  all 
knowledge  refers,  is  only  the  external  side  of  existence, 
a  secondary  added  thing,  something  that  is,  which  was 
not  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  things  generally,  in 
other  words,  of  the  world-whole,  but  merely  to  the  main¬ 
tenance  of  individual  animal  beings.  Hence  the  existence 
of  things  in  general  and  as  a  whole,  appears  only  per 
accidens  in  knowledge  and,  therefore,  in  a  very  limited 
manner;  it  only  forms  the  background  of  the  picture  in 
the  animal  consciousness  where  the  objects  of  the  Will 
are  the  essential,  and  occupy  the  first  place.  There  arises 
now,  by  means  of  this  accident,  the  whole  world  in  space 
and  time,  that  is,  the  world  as  presentment,  which  has  no 
existence  of  this  kind  outside  knowledge.  Its  internal 
essence,  on  the  other  hand,  that  which  is  existent  in  it¬ 
self,  is  quite  independent  of  this  kind  of  existence.  But 
since,  as  already  said,  knowledge  is  only  there  for  the 
sake  of  the  maintenance  of  each  animal  individual,  so  its 
whole  structure  all  its  forms,  as  time,  space,  etc.,  are 
merely  there  for  the  purposes  of  such  an  individual. 
But  the  latter  merely  requires  the  knowledge  of  relations 
between  particular  phenomena,  and  in  no  way  those  of 
the  nature  of  the  thing  and  of  the  world-whole. 

Kant  has  proved  that  the  problems  of  metaphysics 
which  disturb  everyone  more  or  less,  are  capable  of  no 
direct,  of  no  sufficient  solution  whatever,  but  are  based 
in  the  last  resort  on  the  fact  that  they  have  their  origin 
in  the  forms  of  our  intellect,  time,  space  and  causality, 
while  this  intellect  is  merely  designed  to  supply  the  mo¬ 
tives  to  the  individual  will,  i.  e .,  to  show  it  the  objects 
of  its  willing  together  with  the  ways  and  means  to 


OF  THING-IN-ITSELF  AND  PHENOMENON  261 


attain  them.  When,  however,  this  intellect  is  abusively 
turned  to  the  nature  of  things-in-themselves,  to  the  to¬ 
tality  and  the  complex  of  the  world,  the  aforesaid  forms 
pertaining  to  it  of  the  coexistence  succession  and  causa¬ 
tion  of  all  possible  things  give  birth  to  the  metaphysical 
problems  as,  for  instance,  of  origin  and  purpose,  begin¬ 
ning  and  end  of  the  world,  and  of  one’s  own  self,  of  the 
destruction  of  the  latter  by  death,  or  of  its  continued 
duration  in  spite  of  it,  of  the  freedom  of  the  Will,  etc. 
Let  us  conceive  these  forms  as  once  abolished,  and  a 
consciousness  of  the  things  as,  nevertheless,  present  — 
these  problems  would  then  be  not,  indeed,  solved,  but 
would  have  entirely  vanished,  and  their  expression  would 
have  no  more  meaning.  For  they  take  their  origin  en¬ 
tirely  from  these  forms,  which  are  designed  not  for  the 
understanding  of  the  world  and  of  existence,  but  merely 
for  an  understanding  of  our  personal  ends. 

This  whole  consideration  affords  us  an  explanation  and 
objective  justification  of  the  Kantian  doctrines,  which 
were  only  justified  by  their  founder  from  the  subjective 
side,  viz,  that  the  forms  of  the  understanding  are  merely 
of  imminent,  not  transcendent,  application.  One  might, 
instead  of  the  above,  also  say  the  intellect  is  physical, 
not  metaphysical,  i.  e .,  as  it  has  grown  out  of  the  Will 
as  pertaining  to  its  objectivation,  it  is  there  also  only  for 
its  service ;  that  this  merely  obtains  in  nature,  and  not 
in  anything  lying  outside  of  it.  Every  animal  possesses 
(as  I  have  explained  and  substantiated  in  (<Will  in  Na¬ 
ture  ®)  its  intellect  obviously  only  for  the  purpose  of  find¬ 
ing  and  obtaining  its  food,  and  its  degree  is  determined 
thereby.  With  Man  it  is  not  otherwise,  only  that  the 
greater  difficulty  of  his  maintenance,  and  the  infinitely 
greater  number  of  his  wants  has  here  made  a  much 
higher  degree  of  intellect  necessary.  It  is  only  when  this 
is  exceeded,  through  an  abnormity,  that  the  perfectly 
free  surplus  remains,  over  which,  if  considerable,  is  called 
genius.  In  the  first  instance,  such  an  intellect  as  this  is 
truly  objective  only;  but  it  can  easily  go  so  far  that  it 
may  become  to  a  certain  extent  even  metaphysical,  or 
at  least  endeavor  to  be  so.  For  precisely  in  consequence 
of  its  objectivity,  nature  itself,  the  totality  of  things, 


262 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


becomes  its  object  and  its  problem.  For  nature  here  first 
begins  properly  to  perceive  itself  as  something  which  is 
and  yet  might  not  be,  or  which  might  be  otherwise, 
while  in  the  ordinary,  merely  normal,  intellect  it  does  not 
clearly  perceive  itself,  just  as  the  miller  does  not  hear 
his  mill,  nor  the  perfumer  smell  his  shop.  It  seems  to 
require  no  explanation,  the  intellect  is  involved  in  it. 
Only  in  certain  clearer  moments  is  it  aware  of  it,  and 
becomes  almost  frightened  at  it,  but  this  soon  passes  off. 
How  much  such  normal  heads  are  ever  likely  to  achieve 
in  philosophy,  however  numerously  they  congregate,  is 
easy  to  see.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  intellect  were  origi¬ 
nally  and  by  constitution  metaphysical,  it  could  further 
philosophy  like  every  other  science,  especially  with  united 
forces. 


SOME  WORDS  ON  PANTHEISM. 


One  might  illustrate  allegorically  and  dramatically  the 
controversy  carried  on  at  the  present  time  among  the 
professors  of  philosophy  respecting  Theism  and  Pantheism, 
by  a  dialogue  which  took  place  in  the  pit  of  a  theatre  at 
Milan  during  the  performance.  The  one  interlocutor, 
convinced  that  he  is  in  the  great  and  celebrated  Marion¬ 
ette  Theatre  of  Girolamo,  admired  the  art  with  which  the 
director  has  arranged  the  marionettes  and  guides  their 
play.  The  other  says,  on  the  contrary,  (<Not  at  all!  That 
they  were  in  the  Theatro  della  Scala,  that  the  director 
and  his  associates  were  playing  themselves,  and  were  con¬ 
cealed  really  in  the  persons  before  them;  —  and  that  the 
poet  was  also  playing.  ” 

It  is  delightful  to  see  how  the  professors  of  philosophy 
coquet  with  Pantheism  as  with  a  forbidden  thing  which 
they  have  not  the  heart  to  seize.  Their  attitude  in  this 
respect  I  have  already  described  in  my  essay  on  (( The 
University- Philosophy,”  which  reminds  one  of  Bottom  the 
weaver  in  ((The  Midsummer  Night’s  Dream.”  It  is,  in¬ 
deed,  a  sour  piece  of  bread,  the  bread  of  the  professors  of 
philosophy!  One  has  first  to  dance  to  the  pipe  of  minis¬ 
ters,  and  when  one  has  done  that  satisfactorily,  one  may 
still  be  fallen  upon  from  outside  by  those  wild  men-eaters 
the  real  philosophers,  who  are  capable  of  pocketing  and 
running  off  with  one,  in  order  to  produce  one  opportunely 
as  a  pocket-pulcinello  to  give  zest  to  their  expositions. 

Against  Pantheism  I  have  chiefly  this  objection  only, 
that  it  says  nothing.  To  call  the  world  God  is  not  to 
explain  it,  but  only  to  enrich  language  with  a  superfluous 
synonym  of  the  word  (<  world.  ”  Whether  it  says  <(  the 
world  is  God,  ”  or  (<  the  world  is  the  world,  ”  comes  to  the 
same  thing.  If  indeed  we  start  from  God  as  the  given 
thing  to  be  explained,  and  say,  <(  God  is  the  world,  ” 
there  we  have  to  a  certain  extent  an  explanation,  in  so 
far  as  we  return  from  the  unknown  to  the  known;  still 

(263) 


264 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


it  is  only  a  verbal  explanation.  But  if  we  start  from 
the  really  given,  viz,  the  world,  and  say  <(the  world  is 
God,**  it  is  as  clear  as  daylight  that  we  have  said  noth¬ 
ing  thereby,  or  that  at  least  ignotum  is  explained  per 
ignotius;  hence  Pantheism  presupposes  Theism  as  having 
preceded  it.  For  only  in  so  far  as  one  starts  with  a 
God,  and  therefore  has  him  already  in  advance,  and  is 
intimate  with  him,  can  one  finally  bring  oneself  to  iden¬ 
tify  him  with  the  world,  in  order  to  put  him  on  one  side 
in  a  decent  manner.  We  have  not  started  impartially 
from  the  world  as  the  thing  to  be  explained,  but  from 
God  as  the  given  thing;  after  we  did  not  know  what  to 
do  with  the  former,  the  world  had  to  take  over  his  role. 
This  is  the  origin  of  Pantheism.  For  on  a  first  and  im¬ 
partial  view  it  would  never  occur  to  anyone  to  regard 
the  world  as  a  God.  It  must  obviously  be  a  very  ill- 
advised  God  who  knew  no  better  amusement  than  to 
transform  himself  into  a  world  such  as  this:  into  a 
hungry  world,  in  order  there  to  endure  misery,  suffering, 
and  death,  without  measure  or  end,  in  the  shape  of  count¬ 
less  millions  of  living,  but  anxious  and  tormented  beings, 
who  only  maintain  themselves  for  a  while  by  mutually 
devouring  each  other:  e.  g.,  in  the  shape  of  six  million 
negro  slaves,  who  daily  on  an  average  receive  sixty  million 
blows  of  the  whip  on  their  bare  bodies,  and  in  the  shape 
of  three  million  European  weavers  who,  amid  hunger 
and  misery,  feebly  vegetate  in  stuffy  attics  or  wretched 
workshops,  etc.  That  would  indeed  be  a  pastime  for  a 
God!  who  as  such  must  be  accustomed  to  things  very 
different. 

The  supposed  great  progress  from  Theism  to  Pantheism, 
if  taken  seriously  and  not  merely  as  a  masked  negation, 
as  above  suggested,  is  accordingly,  a  progress  from  the 
unproven,  and  hardly  thinkable  to  the  actually  absurd. 
For  however  unclear,  vacillating,  and  confused  may  be 
the  conception  which  one  associates  with  the  word  God, 
two  predicates  are  at  all  events  inseparable  from  it  — 
the  highest  power  and  the  highest  wisdom.  But  that  a 
being  armed  with  this  should  have  placed  himself  in  the 
position  above  described,  is  an  actually  absurd  idea;  for 
our  position  in  the  world  is  obviously  such  as  no  intelli- 


I 


SOME  WORDS  ON  PANTHEISM  265 

gent,  let  alone  an  all-wise  "being,  would  place  himself  in. 
Theism,  on  the  other  hand,  is  merely  unproven,  and  even 
if  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  the  infinite  world  should 
be  the  work  of  a  personal,  and  therefore  individual  be¬ 
ing,  such  as  we  only  know  from  animal  nature,  it  is 
nevertheless  not  exactly  absurd.  For  that  an  almighty 
and,  at  the  same  time,  an  all-wise  being  should  create  a 
tormented  world  is  always  conceivable,  although  we  may 
not  know  the  wherefore  of  it.  Hence,  even  if  we  at¬ 
tribute  to  him  the  quality  of  the  highest  goodness,  the 
incomprehensibility  of  his  judgment  is  always  the  refuge 
by  which  such  a  doctrine  escapes  the  reproach  of  absurd¬ 
ity.  On  the  assumption  of  Pantheism,  however,  the 
creating  God  is  himself  the  endlessly  tormented,  and  on 
this  small  earth  alone  dies  once  in  every  second,  and 
this  of  his  own  free  will,  which  is  absurd.  It  would  be 
much  more  correct  to  identify  the  world  with  the  devil, 
as  has  been  actually  done  by  the  venerable  author  of 
tfThe  German  Theology,®  inasmuch  as  on  p.  93  of  his 
immortal  work  (according  to  the  restored  text,  Stuttgart, 
1851),  he  says:  <(  Therefore  are  the  evil  spirit  and  nature 
one,  and  when  nature  is  not  overcome  there  also  is  the 
evil  one  not  overcome.® 

The  Pantheists  obviously  give  to  the  Sansara  the  name 
God.  The  Mystics,  on  the  other  hand,  give  the  same 
name  to  the  Nirvana.  Of  this,  however,  they  relate 
more  than  they  know,  which  the  Buddhists  do  not  do; 
and  hence  their  Nirvana  is  but  a  relative  nothing.  The 
Synagogue,  the  Church,  and  Islam  use  the  word  God  in 
its  proper  and  correct  sense. 

The  expression  one  often  hears  nowadays,  <(  the  world 
is  end  to  itself,®  leaves  undecided  whether  it  is  to  be  ex¬ 
plained  by  Pantheism  or  by  mere  Fatalism,  but  allows 
it  at  all  events  only  a  physical  and  no  moral  significance, 
since  on  the  assumption  of  this  latter  the  world  always 
presents  itself  as  means  to  a  higher  end.  But  this  no¬ 
tion  that  the  world  has  only  a  physical  and  no  moral 
significance  is  the  most  hopeless  error  that  has  ever 
sprung  from  the  perversity  of  the  human  mind. 


ON  ETHICS. 


Physical  truths  may  have  much  external  significance, 
but  they  are  wanting  in  internal  significance.  The  latter 
is  the  privilege  of  intellectual  and  moral  truths,  which 
have  as  their  theme  the  highest  stages  of  the  objectiva- 
tion  of  the  Will,  while  the  former  have  only  the  lowest. 
For  instance,  if  we  attain  to  certainty  as  to  what  is  now 
merely  supposition,  to  wit,  that  the  sun  at  the  equator 
produces  thermoelectricity,  this  the  magnetism  of  the 
earth,  and  this  again  the  polar  light,  these  truths  would 
be  of  much  external  significance,  but  internally  poor. 
Examples  of  internal  truths  are  not  only  furnished  by 
high  and  truly  spiritual  philosophizings,  but  also  by  the 
catastrophe  of  every  good  tragedy;  also  indeed  by  the 
observation  of  human  conduct  in  the  extreme  expres¬ 
sions  of  its  morality  and  immorality,  in  other  words,  of 
its  evil  and  goodness.  For  in  all  this  the  essence  ap¬ 
pears  whose  phenomenon  the  world  is,  and  at  the  high¬ 
est  stage  of  its  objectivation  brings  to  light  its  innermost 
core. 

That  the  world  has  merely  a  physical,  and  no  moral 
significance,  is  the  greatest,  the  most  pernicious,  the  fun¬ 
damental  error,  the  true  perversity  of  opinion,  and  is  at 
bottom  that  which  faith  has  personified  as  Anti-Christ. 
Nevertheless,  and  despite  all  religions,  which  one  and  all 
maintain  the  contrary,  and  seek  to  explain  it  in  their 
mythical  fashion,  this  root-error  never  quite  dies  out,  but 
ever  and  again  raises  its  head  anew,  till  universal  indig¬ 
nation  compels  it  once  more  to  hide  it. 

But  certain  as  is  the  feeling  of  a  moral  significance  of 
the  world  and  of  life,  its  explication  and  the  unraveling 
of  the  contradiction  between  it  and  the  course  of  the 
world  is,  nevertheless,  so  difficult,  that  it  was  reserved  for 
me  to  expound  the  true  only  genuine  and  pure,  and 
therefore  everywhere  and  at  all  times  operative  foun- 
(266) 


ON  ETHICS 


267 


dation  of  morality,  together  with  the  goal  to  which  it 
leads.  In  this  I  have  the  reality  of  moral  progress  too 
much  on  my  side,  that  I  need  fear  ever  again  to  be 
superseded  and  displaced  by  another. 

As  long,  however,  as  my  <(  Ethics ”  remain  unnoticed  by 
the  professors,  the  Kantian  moral  principle  obtains  at 
the  universities,  and  among  its  various  forms  that  of  the 
Dignity  of  Man ”  is  now  the  most  accepted.  I  have 
already  exposed  its  emptiness  in  my  essay  on  the  (<  Foun¬ 
dation  of  Morality,”  §  8,  p.  169  (2d  ed.,  166).  For  this 
reason  we  say  only  thus  much  here  on  this  point.  If  one 
were  to  ask  on  what  this  pretended  dignity  of  man  rested, 
the  answer  would  come  to  saying  that  it  rested  on  his 
morality.  Thus  the  morality  rests  on  the  dignity,  and 
the  dignity  on  the  morality.  But  apart  from  this,  the 
conception  of  dignity  seems  to  me  to  be  only  ironically 
applicable  to  a  being  so  sinful  in  will,  so  limited  in  in¬ 
tellect,  so  easily  injured,  and  so  feeble  in  body  as  man: 

<(Quid  superbit  homo?  cujus  conceptio  culpa, 

Nasci  poena,  labor  vita,  necesse  mori ! ® 

I  would  therefore  postulate  the  following  rule  in  oppo¬ 
sition  to  the  aforesaid  form  of  the  Kantian  moral  prin¬ 
ciple  :  Do  not  attempt  in  the  case  of  any  man  with  whom 
you  come  in  contact  an  objective  valuation  of  him  as  to 
worth  and  dignity;  hence  do  not  take  into  consideration 
the  badness  of  his  will,  nor  the  limitation  of  his  under¬ 
standing,  nor  the  perversity  of  his  ideas,  for  the  first 
can  easily  evoke  hatred,  the  last  contempt  against  him; 
but  bear  in  mind  only  his  sufferings,  his  need,  his  anx¬ 
iety,  his  pains.  In  this  way  we  shall  continually  feel 
ourselves  related  to  him,  sympathize  with  him,  and  in¬ 
stead  of  hatred  or  contempt,  experience  that  sympathy 
with  him  which  is  the  only  dydn-rj  to  which  the  Gospel 
admonishes  us.  The  standpoint  of  sympathy  is  alone 
suited  to  prevent  hatred  or  contempt  arising  toward  him, 
and  not  certainly  the  opposite  one  of  seeking  after  his 
pretended  dignity. 

The  Buddhists,  in  consequence  of  their  deeper  ethical 
and  metaphysical  insights,  do  not  start  from  cardinal 


268 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


virtues,  but  from  cardinal  vices,  as  the  antitheses  or 
negations  of  which  the  cardinal  virtues  first  appear. 
According  to  J.  J.  Schmidt’s  (<  History  of  the  Eastern 
Mongolians,®  p.  7,  the  cardinal  vices  of  the  Buddhists 
are  lust,  idleness,  anger,  and  greed.  But  probably  pride 
ought  to  stand  in  the  place  of  idleness,  as  given  in  the 
<(  Lettres  Edifiantes  et  Curieuses,®  edit,  de  1819,  vol.  vi.,  p. 
372;  envy  or  hatred  being  there  added  as  a  fifth.  For 
my  correction  of  the  statement  of  the  highly  deserving 
J.  J.  Schmidt,  its  agreement  with  the  doctrines  of  the 
Sufis,  who  were  certainly  under  the  influence  of  Brahm- 
ism  and  Buddhism,  speaks  strongly  in  favor.  For  these 
also  postulate  the  same  cardinal  vices,  and  indeed  very 
effectively,  pairwise,  so  that  lust  appears  related  to  greed, 
and  anger  to  pride.  (See  Tholuck’s  (<  Collection  of  Blos¬ 
soms  from  Oriental  Mysticism,®  p.  206.)  We  already  find 
lust,  anger,  and  greed  in  the  <(  Bhagavat  Gita®  (xvi.  21), 
postulated  .as  cardinal  vices,  which  attests  the  great  age 
of  the  doctrine.  Similarly  in  the  <(  Prabodha-Chandrodaya,® 
a  philosophico-allegorical  drama,  extremely  important  for 
the  Vedanta-philosophy,  these  three  cardinal  vices  also 
appear  as  the  three  generals  of  the  King  Passion  in  his 
war  against  King  Reason.  As  the  cardinal  virtues  op¬ 
posed  to  the  above  cardinal  vices,  modesty  and  generos- 
ity,  together  with  mildness  and  humility,  would  result. 

If  we  compare  with  these  deeply-conceived  oriental 
root-ideas  of  ethics  the  so-celebrated  and  so-many-thou- 
sand-times-repeated  cardinal  virtues  of  Plato,  justice,  brav¬ 
ery,  moderation,  and  wisdom,  we  shall  find  them  to  be 
without  a  clear  guiding  root-conception,  and  therefore 
superficially  chosen,  and  in  part  even  clearly  false.  Virtues 
must  be  qualities  of  the  Will,  but  wisdom  belongs  di¬ 
rectly  to  the  intellect.  The  cwtypoabvr),  which  is  translated 
by  Cicero  Temperantia ,  and  in  German  Massigkeit  (moder¬ 
ation),  is  a  very  indeterminate  and  ambiguous  expression, 
under  which  many  things  may  be  brought,  such  as  reflec¬ 
tion,  abstinence,  holding  one’s  head  up;  it  comes  probably 
from  <ru>ov  k'/ecv  to  <ppv£~iv,  or  as  Hierax  says  in  (<  Stobaeus  ® 
(Flor.  tit.  J.,  §  60,  vol.  i. ,  p.  134,  Gaisf.)  .  .  .  Taurrjv 
rijv  ap£T7jv  tru)(j)poabvrjv  hid\£<jav  <uozrjp(av  ouaav  (ppovrjff^oj?.  Bravery 
is  no  virtue  at  all,  although  it  may  sometimes  be  the 


ON  ETHICS 


269 


servant  or  tool  of  virtue;  albeit  it  is  equally  ready  to 
serve  the  cause  of  the  greatest  unworthiness,  being, 
properly  speaking,  a  mere  characteristic  of  temperament. 
Geuliux  (<(  Ethica,  in  Prsefatione,”)  rejected  the  cardinal 
virtues  of  Plato  and  postulated  these;  diligentia ,  ob- 
edientia ,  justitia,  humilitas ;  obviously  a  bad  selection. 
The  Chinese  name  five  cardinal  virtues:  sympathy,  jus¬ 
tice,  politeness,  knowledge,  and  uprightness  ((<Journ. 
Asiatique,”  vol.  ix.,  p.  62).  <(  Sam.  Kidd,  China”  (Lon¬ 

don,  1841,  p.  197),  calls  them  benevolence,  righteous¬ 
ness,  propriety,  wisdom,  and  sincerity,  and  gives  an  ex¬ 
haustive  commentary  on  each.  Christianity  has  no 
cardinal,  but  only  theological  virtues  :  faith,  love,  and  hope. 

The  point  at  which  the  moral  virtues  and  vices  of  men 
first  part  is  the  above  antithesis  of  our  fundamental  atti¬ 
tude  toward  others,  which  either  takes  on  the  character 
of  envy  or  of  sympathy.  For  these  two  diametrically 
opposite  characteristics  every  man  bears  within  himself, 
since  they  spring  from  the  unavoidable  comparison  of  his 
own  state  with  that  of  another;  and  accordingly,  as  the 
result  affects  his  individual  character,  will  the  one  or  the 
other  quality  become  his  fundamental  attitude  of  mind 
and  the  source  of  his  conduct.  Envy  builds  up  the  more 
firmly  the  wall  between  thou  and  I ;  for  sympathy  it  be¬ 
comes  thin  and  transparent;  sometimes,  indeed,  it  is 
thrown  down  altogether,  in  which  case  the  distinction  be¬ 
tween  I  and  not-I  vanishes. 

Bravery,  as  discussed  in  the  foregoing,  or  rather  the 
courage  which  lies  at  its  foundation  ( for  courage  is  only 
bravery  in  war)  deserves  a  closer  investigation.  The 
ancients  reckoned  courage  among  the  virtues  and  coward¬ 
ice  among  the  vices ;  but  the  Christian  moral  sense,  which 
is  directed  toward  well-wishing  and  suffering,  and  whose 
doctrine  forbids  all  enmity,  properly  indeed  all  resistance, 
does  not  involve  this,  and  hence  it  has  disappeared  with 
the  moderns.  We  must  nevertheless  admit  that  cowardice 
is  not  easily  compatible  with  a  noble  character  if  only  on 
account  of  the  excessive  concern  for  one’s  person  which 
betrays  itself  therein.  Courage  is  reducible  to  the  fact 
that  one  willingly  encounters  evils  threatened  at  the 


270 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


present  moment,  in  order  to  avoid  greater  ones  looming 
in  the  future,  while  cowardice  does  the  opposite.  Now  pa¬ 
tience  is  of  the  former  character,  since  it  consists  in  the 
clear  consciousness  that  there  are  greater  evils  than  the 
present  ones  which  might  be  brought  on  by  the  violent 
flying  from  or  warding  off  of  these.  Courage  would  there¬ 
fore  be  a  form  of  patience,  and  because  it  is  this  which 
enables  us  to  endure  privations  and  self-conquest  of  every 
kind,  so,  by  means  of  it,  courage  is  at  least  akin  to  virtue. 

But  perhaps  it  admits  of  a  higher  mode  of  contempla¬ 
tion  One  might  reduce  all  fear  of  death  to  a  want  of 
that  natural  and  therefore  merely  felt  metaphysic  by 
virtue  of  which  man  bears  within  himself  the  certainty 
that  he  exists  just  as  much  in  all  things,  yes,  in  all  things, 
as  in  his  own  person,  the  death  of  which  need  therefore 
little  concern  him.  From  this  certainty,  accordingly, 
arose  the  heroic  courage  and  consequently  ( as  the  reader 
may  remember  from  my  ®  Ethics”)  from  the  same  source 
as  the  virtues  of  justice  and  human  love.  This  certainly 
means  seizing  the  matter  from  above;  nevertheless  it  is 
not  easily  to  be  explained  otherwise  why  cowardice  ap¬ 
pears  contemptible,  and  personal  courage,  on  the  contrary, 
noble  and  sublime.  For  one  cannot  see  from  any  lower 
standpoint  why  a  finite  individual  who  is  himself  all  — 
is  himself  indeed  the  fundamental  condition  of  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  the  rest  of  the  world  —  should  not  put  the 
maintenance  of  himself  before  all  else.  An  exclusively 
immanent,  that  is  purely  empirical  explanation,  inasmuch 
as  it  could  only  be  based  on  the  utility  of  courage, 
would  be  insufficient.  From  this  it  may  have  arisen  that 
Calderon  pronounces  a  sceptical  but  significant  view  of 
courage,  when  he  denies  its  reality,  and  does  this  indeed 
out  of  the  mouth  of  an  old  wise  minister  as  against  his 
young  King: — 

(<  Que  aunque  el  natural  temor, 

En  todos  obra  igualmente, 

No  mostrale  es  ser  valiente, 

Y  esto  es  lo  que  hace  el  valor. » 

(<  La  Hija  del  Aire,**  P.  II.  tom,  2. 

*  For  although  natural  fear  is  active  in  the  same  way  in  all 
men,  one  is  brave  in  so  far  as  one  does  not  let  it  be  seen, 


ON  ETHICS 


271 


and  this  indeed  constitutes  bravery.  ®  (<(The  Daughter  of 
the  Air,”  Part.  II.,  A.  2.) 

Respecting  the  above-mentioned  differences  between 
the  estimation  of  courage  among  the  ancients  and  among 
the  moderns  it  must,  however,  be  taken  into  considera¬ 
tion  that  the  ancients  understood  by  virtue,  virtus ,  apery, 
every  excellence,  every  quality  praiseworthy  in  itself, 
whether  moral  or  intellectual,  or,  indeed,  merely  cor¬ 
poreal.  But  after  that  Christianity  had  demonstrated 
the  ground-tendency  of  life  to  be  moral,  moral  excel¬ 
lencies  alone  were  thought  of  under  the  conception  of 
virtue.  Meanwhile  we  find  the  earliest  sense  in  the 
older  Latinists  and  even  in  the  Italian,  as  is  proved  by 
the  well-known  meaning  of  the  word  virtuoso .  Learners 
ought  to  have  their  attention  especially  directed  to  this 
extended  range  of  the  conception  Virtue  among  the 
ancients,  as  otherwise  it  may  easily  give  rise  to  a  secret 
perplexity  in  them.  To  this  end  I  particularly  recom¬ 
mend  two  passages  preserved  for  us  by  Stobseus;  the  one 
apparently  emanating  from  the  Pythagorean  Metopos  in 
the  first  chap,  of  his  <(  Florilegium, ”  §  64  (Vol.  i.,  p.  22, 
Gaisf.),  where  the  capacity  of  each  member  of  our  body 
for  dpery  is  explained,  and  the  other  in  his  <(  Eclog.  Eth.  ® 
I.  II.,  cap.  7  (p.  272,  ed.  Heeren).  It  there  speaks  as 
follows  .  .  .  GK.uror6p.ou  dperyv  Xiyea&ai  Kaxf  yv  dnoTeXelv 

apiGTOv  UTzddypa  duvarac.  ( SutoriS  VirtUS  dlCltUT  Secundum 
quam  probum  calceum  novit  par  are.')  This  explains  why 
virtues  and  vices  are  spoken  of  in  the  (<  Ethics  ”  of  the 
ancients  and  find  no  place  in  our  own. 

Just  as  the  place  of  bravery  among  the  Virtues  is 
doubtful  so  is  that  of  avarice  among  the  Vices.  Only 
one  must  not  confound  it  with  the  greed  which  is  di¬ 
rectly  expressed  by  the  Latin  word  avaritia.  We  will 
therefore  for  the  nonce  allow  the  pro  and  contra  to  be 
brought  forward  and  heard,  so  that  the  final  judgment 
may  be  left  to  each  reader. 

A.  Avarice  is  not  a  vice,  but  its  opposite,  extrava¬ 
gance,  which  arises  from  an  animal  limitation  to  the 
present  time  against  which  the  future,  existing  as  it  does 
merely  in  thought,  can  attain  no  power,  and  is  based  on 


272 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


the  illusion  of  the  positive  and  real  value  of  sensuous 
pleasures.  Future  want  and  suffering  are  accordingly  the 
price  for  which  the  spendthrift  purchases  these  vacuous, 
fleeting,  and  often  imaginary  pleasures,  or  feeds  his 
empty,  brainless  conceit  in  the  posturings  of  the  para¬ 
sites  who  laugh  at  him  behind  his  back,  and  in  the 
astonishment  of  the  common  people  and  of  those  envious 
of  his  magnificence.  For  this  reason  one  ought  to  fly 
from  him  as  from  one  plague- stricken,  and  after  we  have 
discovered  his  vice  to  break  with  him  as  soon  as  possible ; 
so  that  we  may  not  have,  later,  when  the  consequences 
appear,  either  to  help  to  bear  them,  or  to  play  the  role 
of  the  friends  of  Timon  of  Athens.  In  the  same  way  it 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  he  who  has  thoughtlessly  run 
through  his  own  fortune  will  leave  untouched  that  of  an¬ 
other  when  it  comes  into  his  hands;  but  as  Sallust  has 
very  rightly  put  it,  sui  profiisus ,  alieni  appetens  (Catil. 
c.  5).  Hence  extravagance  leads  not  merely  to  poverty  but 
through  this  to  crime;  the  criminals  from  the  well-to-do 
classes  have  almost  all  become  so  in  consequence  of  ex¬ 
travagance.  Truly  does  the  Koran  say  (Sure  17,  v.  29): 
<(  Spendthrifts  are  brothers  of  Satan.  ®  Avarice,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  has  superfluity  in  its  train,  and  when  is  this  undesir¬ 
able  ?  But  that  must  surely  be  a  good  vice  that  has  good 
consequences.  The  avaricious  man,  namely,  proceeds  from 
the  correct  principle  that  all  pleasures  act  merely  nega¬ 
tively  and  that  hence  a  happiness  compounded  of  them 
is  a  chimera,  and  that  on  the  contrary  pains  are  positive 
and  very  real.  Hence  he  denies  for  himself  the  former, 
in  order  the  better  to  secure  himself  against  the  latter, 
so  that  sustine  abstine  are  its  maxims.  And  since  he  fur¬ 
ther  knows  how  inexhaustible  are  the  possibilities  of 
misfortune,  and  how  countless  the  paths  of  danger,  he 
takes  his  measures  against  them,  in  order,  if  possible,  to 
surround  himself  with  a  threefold  wall  of  defense.  Who 
could  say  then  where  precautions  against  accidents  begin 
to  be  excessive  ?  Only  he  who  knew  where  the  tricks  of 
fortune  attain  their  end.  And  even  if  precautions  are 
excessive,  this  mistake  at  most  brings  harm  to  himself, 
not  to  others.  Will  he  never  have  need  of  the  treasures 
he  hoards  up  ?  In  this  case  they  will  accrue  at  some 


ON  ETHICS 


273 


time  to  the  benefit  of  others  to  whom  nature  has  given 
less  forethought.  That  until  then  money  has  been  with¬ 
drawn  from  circulation  is  no  harm,  for  money  is  not  an 
article  of  consumption;  it  is  a  mere  representative  of 
real,  useful  goods,  not  such  itself.  Ducats  are  at  bottom 
themselves  mere  reckoning  counters ;  it  is  not  they  which 
have  value,  but  that  which  they  represent,  and  this  can¬ 
not  be  withdrawn  from  circulation.  Besides,  through  his 
retention  of  the  money,  the  value  of  that  which  remains 
in  circulation  is  by  so  much  raised.  If,  as  is  sometimes 
maintained,  many  misers  at  last  come  to  love  money 
directly  for  its  own  sake,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  and  just 
as  certainly  does  many  a  spendthrift  love  the  spending 
and  wasting  of  money  for  its  own  sake.  But  friendship, 
or,  indeed,  relationship  with  the  miser,  is  not  only  with¬ 
out  danger  but  desirable,  since  it  may  bring  him  the 
greatest  advantages.  For  at  all  events  those  nearest  to 
him  reap  the  fruits  of  his  self-restraint  after  his  death. 
But  even  during  his  life  there  is,  in  cases  of  great  need, 
something  to  be  hoped  from  him  —  more  at  least  than 
from  the  penniless  spendthrift  who  is  helpless  and  in 
debt.  <(  Mas  dh  el  duro,  que  el  desnudo w  ( (<  The  hard¬ 
hearted  man  gives  more  than  the  naked w)  says  a  Spanish 
proverb.  In  consequence  of  all  this,  avarice  is  no 
vice. 

B.  It  is  the  quintessence  of  the  vices!  If  physical 
pleasures  seduce  man  from  the  right  path,  his  sensuous 
nature,  the  animal  within  him,  is  to  blame.  Carried 
away  by  excitement,  and  overpowered  by  the  impression 
of  the  moment,  he  acts  without  consideration.  When, 
however,  through  bodily  weakness  or  old  age  he  has 
reached  a  stage  at  which  the  vices  which  he  could  never 
forsake,  finally  forsake  him,  in  that  his  capacity  for  sen¬ 
sual  enjoyments  has  died  out,  the  intellectual  appetite 
survives  the  fleshly,  and  he  turns  to  avarice.  Money, 
which  is  the  representative  of  all  the  good  things  of  the 
world  —  which  is  their  abstr actum  —  is  now  the  withered 
stem  to  which  his  dead  appetites  cling,  as  egoism  in  ab- 
stracto.  They  regenerate  themselves  henceforth  in  the 
love  of  mammon.  Out  of  the  fleeting,  sensuous  appetite 
a  well  considered  and  calculating  appetite  for  money  has 
18 


274 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


developed  itself,  which  like  its  object  is  of  symbolical 
nature,  and  like  it  also  is  indestructible.  It  is  the  stiff¬ 
necked  love  of  the  enjoyments  of  the  world,  as  it  were 
outliving  itself,  the  perfected  inconvertibility,  the  subli¬ 
mated  and  spiritualized  lust  of  the  flesh,  the  abstract  fo¬ 
cus  in  which  all  lusts  centre,  to  which  it  is,  therefore 
related  as  the  universal  concept  to  particular  things. 
Avarice,  accordingly,  is  the  vice  of  age,  as  extravagance 
is  that  of  youth. 

The  disputatio  in  utramque  partem  just  heard  is  assur¬ 
edly  suited  to  force  as  to  the  juste  milieu  morality  of 
Aristotle.  The  following  consideration  is  also  favorable 
thereto. 

Every  human  perfection  is  akin  to  a  fault  into  which 
it  threatens  to  pass  over;  and  conversely  every  fault  is 
akin  to  a  perfection.  Hence  the  mistake  respecting  a 
man  in  which  we  are  often  landed,  rests  upon  the  fact 
that  at  the  beginning  of  our  acquaintance  we  confound 
his  faults  with  their  kindred  perfections,  or  vice  versa. 
The  prudent  man  thus  seems  to  us  cowardly,  the  econom¬ 
ical  man  avaricious;  the  spendthrift  seems  liberal,  the 
discourteous  man  straightforward  and  upright,  the  block¬ 
head  endowed  with  a  noble  self-confidence,  etc. 

He  who  lives  among  men  feels  himself  ever  anew 
tempted  to  the  assumption  that  moral  badness  and  intel¬ 
lectual  incapacity  are  closely  connected,  since  they  spring 
directly  from  one  root.  But  that  this  is  not  so,  I  have 
conclusively  shown  in  the  second  volume  of  my  chief 
work,  chap,  xix.,  No.  8.  The  foregoing  illusion,  which 
merely  arises  from  the  fact  that  both  are  often  found 
together,  is  entirely  to  be  explained  from  the  very  fre¬ 
quent  appearance  of  both,  in  consequence  of  which  it 
often  happens  to  them  that  they  have  to  dwell  beneath 
the  same  roof.  But  it  is  not  to  be  denied,  however,  that 
they  play  into  one  another’s  hands  to  reciprocal  advan¬ 
tage,  whence  is  brought  about  the  so  unedifying  appear¬ 
ance  which  only  too  many  men  offer,  and  the  world  goes 
as  it  goes.  Stupidity  is  especially  favorable  to  the  clear 
exposure  of  falseness,  meanness  and  malice;  while  pru¬ 
dence  understands  better  how  to  conceal  this.  And  how 
often,  on  the  other  hand,  the  perversity  of  the  heart 


ON  ETHICS 


275 


prevents  man  from  seeing  truths  to  which  his  under¬ 
standing  would  be  quite  equal. 

However,  let  no  one  be  too  proud,  since  every  one, 
even  the  greatest  genius,  is  unquestionably  limited  in 
some  sphere  of  knowledge,  and  thereby  proclaims  his  rela¬ 
tionship  with  the  essentially  perverted  and  absurd  human 
race.  Each  one  bears  something  morally  bad  within 
him,  and  even  the  best,  the  noblest  character,  will  sur¬ 
prise  us  at  times  by  individual  traits  of  badness,  in  order, 
as  it  were,  to  indicate  its  kinship  with  that  human  race 
in  which  every  degree  of  unworthiness  and  cruelty  occurs. 
For  precisely  owing  to  this  bad  within  him,  this  evil 
principle,  he  was  compelled  to  become  a  man.  And  for 
this  same  reason  the  world  is  exactly  that  which  my 
true  mirror  of  it  has  shown  it  to  be. 

In  spite  of  all,  however,  the  differences  between  men 
remain  incalculably  great,  and  many  a  one  would  be 
shocked  if  he  saw  another  as  he  himself  is.  O  for  an 
Asmodeus  of  morality  who  not  alone  made  roofs  and  walls 
transparent  to  his  favored  one,  but  the  veil  of  the  Pre¬ 
sentment  spread  out  over  all  falseness,  hypocrisy,  double- 
facedness,  lying  and  deception,  and  who  would  let  him  see 
how  little  true  honesty  is  to  be  found  in  the  world,  and 
how  often,  even  where  one  least  expects  it,  behind  all  the 
virtuous  outworks,  secretly  and  in  the  innermost  recess 
unrighteousness  sits  at  the  helm.  Hence  come  the  four- 
footed  friendships  of  so  many  of  the  better  kind  of  men, 
for  on  what  indeed  should  one  refresh  oneself  from  the 
endless  deceit,  falseness,  and  cunning  of  men  if  it  were 
not  for  the  dogs  into  whose  faithful  countenance  one  may 
look  without  distrust  ?  Our  civilized  world  is  then  only  a 
great  masquerade.  One  meets  there  knights,  parsons, 
soldiers,  doctors,  advocates,  priests,  philosophers,  and  what 
not!  But  they  are  not  what  they  represent  themselves; 
they  are  mere  masks  under  which  are  hidden,  as  a  rule, 
money-makers.  One  will  assume  the  mask  of  justice 
which  he  has  borrowed  from  his  advocate,  merely  in  order 
to  crush  another;  a  second,  with  the  same  object,  chooses 
the  mark  of  public  weal  and  patriotism;  a  third  that  of 
religion,  of  purity,  of  faith ;  many  a  one  has  for  a  variety 
of  purposes  donned  the  mask  of  philosophy,  of  philan- 


2  76 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


thropy,  etc.  Women  have  less  choice;  they  mostly  employ 
the  mask  of  purity,  of  bashfulness,  domesticity,  and  mod¬ 
esty.  There  are,  moreover,  universal  masks  with  no 
special  character,  as  it  were  the  dominos  that  one  meets 
with  everywhere.  To  this  character  belong  strict  integ¬ 
rity,  politeness,  disinterested  sympathy,  and  grinning 
friendship.  Manufacturers,  commercial  men,  and  specu¬ 
lators,  only  are,  for  the  most  part,  hidden  behind  all  these 
masks.  In  this  respect  the  merchants  constitute  the  only 
honorable  class,  for  they  alone  admit  themselves  to  be 
what  they  are;  they  go  about  unmasked,  and,  therefore, 
stand  low  in  rank.  It  is  very  important  to  be  taught 
early  in  youth  that  one  is  living  in  a  masquerade.  For 
otherwise  many  things  will  be  unable  to  be  understood 
and  come  at;  but  one  will  stand  before  them  puzzled, 
and  the  longest  he  who  cni  ex  meliori  luto  dedit  proecordia 
Titan .  Such  is  the  favor  which  baseness  finds,  the  neg¬ 
lect  which  merit  even  the  rarest  and  the  greatest  suffers 
from  the  men  of  its  department,  the  detestation  of  the  truth, 
and  of  great  capacities,  the  ignorance  of  the  learned  in 
their  own  branch  that  genuine  wares  are  almost  always 
despised,  and  the  merely  apparent  sought  after.  The 
youth  should,  therefore,  be  taught  that  in  this  masquerade 
the  apples  are  of  wax,  the  flowers  of  silk,  the  fish  of  paste, 
and  all  is  trifling  and  jesting;  and  that  of  those  yonder 
whom  he  sees  so  earnestly  engaged  with  each  other,  the 
one  gives  nothing  but  false  wares,  and  the  other  pays  for' 
them  with  counters. 

But  more  serious  considerations  are  to  be  brought  for¬ 
ward  and  worse  things  told.  Man  is  at  bottom  a  wild, 
horrible  creature.  We  know  him  merely  as  broken  in 
and  tamed  by  what  we  call  civilization,  and  hence  the 
occasional  outbreaks  of  his  nature  shock  us.  But  where 
and  when  the  padlock  and  chain  of  legal  order  fall  off 
and  anarchy  enters,  then  he  shows  himself  what  he  is. 
He  who  in  the  meantime  without  this  opportunity  would 
like  to  inform  himself  thereupon,  can  acquire  the  con¬ 
viction  from  hundreds  of  ancient  and  modern  narratives, 
that  man  yields  in  cruelty  and  pitilessness  to  no  tiger 
and  no  hyena.  An  important  instance  from  modern  times 
is  furnished  by  the  answer  which  the  British  Anti- Slavery 


ON  ETHICS 


2  77 


Society  received  to  its  questions  as  to  the  treatment  of  the 
slaves  in  the  slave-holding  states  of  the  North  American 
Union  from  the  North  American  Anti- Slavery  Society  in 
the  year  1840:  <(  Slavery  and  the  internal  slave  trade  in 
the  United  States  of  North  America,  being  replies  to 
questions  transmitted  by  the  British  Anti-Slavery  Society 
to  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  London,  1841. ® 
This  Book  constitutes  one  of  the  heaviest  indictments 
against  human  nature.  No  one  will  lay  it  aside  without 
horror,  few  without  tears.  For  what  the  reader  has 
heard  or  imagined  or  may  have  dreamt,  as  to  the  un¬ 
happy  state  of  the  slaves  or  of  human  harshness  and 
cruelty  in  general,  will  seem  insignificant  to  him  when 
he  reads  how  those  devils  in  human  shape,  those  bigoted 
church-going,  strict  sabbath-observing  scoundrels,  espe¬ 
cially  the  Anglican  parsons  among  them,  treat  their  in¬ 
nocent  black  brethren  who  by  injustice  and  violence  have 
come  into  their  devil’s  claws.  This  book,  which  consists 
of  dry  but  authentic  and  substantiated  accounts,  inflames 
all  human  feeling  to  such  a  degree  that  with  it  in  the 
hand  one  could  preach  a  crusade  for  the  conquest  and 
punishment  of  the  slave-holding  States  of  North  America. 
For  they  are  a  disgrace  for  all  humanity.  Another  ex¬ 
ample  from  the  present  time  —  for  the  past  will  not  seem 
to  many  any  longer  valid  —  is  contained  in  Tschudi’s 
<( Travels  in  Peru,®  1846.  In  the  description  of  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  the  Peruvian  soldiers  by  their  officers.*  But  we 
do  not  require  to  seek  for  examples  in  the  new  world, 
that  reverse  side  of  the  planet.  In  the  year  1848  it  came 
to  light  that  in  England  within  a  short  space  of  time, 
there  had  been  not  one,  but  a  hundred  cases  in  which  a 
husband  poisoned  a  wife,  or  a  wife  a  husband,  or  both 
together  their  children,  or  slowly  tortured  their  children 
to  death  by  hunger  or  bad  treatment,  merely  to  receive 
from  the  burial  clubs  the  funeral  expenses  guaranteed  to 
them  in  case  of  death,  for  which  purpose  they  bought  a 
child  into  several,  sometimes  as  many  as  twenty  of  such 

*  A  most  recent  instance  may  be  found  in  Macleod’s  «  Travels  in 
Eastern  Africa  ®  (2  vols.,  London,  i860),  where  the  unheard-of  cold,  cal¬ 
culating,  and  truly  devilish  cruelty  with  which  the  Portuguese  in  Mo¬ 
zambique  treat  their  slaves  is  narrated. 


278 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


clubs.  See  on  this  matter  the  (<  Times, w  20th,  22d,  23d  Sep¬ 
tember,  1848,  which  journal  merely  on  this  account  presses 
for  the  abolition  of  burial  clubs.  It  repeats  the  same 
charge  in  the  strongest  manner  on  the  12th  December, 
1853- 

Reports  of  this  kind  certainly  belong  to  the  blackest 
pages  in  the  criminal  annals  of  the  human  race,  but  the 
source  of  them,  and  of  everything  similar,  is  nevertheless 
the  inner  and  inborn  nature  of  man,  this  nar  ZZoxyv, 
this  God  of  the  Pantheists.  There  rests  directly  in  every 
one  a  colossal  egoism  which  overleaps  the  boundaries  of 
justice  with  the  greatest  ease,  as  daily  life  teaches  on  a 
small  scale,  and  history  at  every  page  on  a  large  scale. 
Does  there  not  lie,  indeed,  in  the  recognized  necessity  of 
the  so  anxiously-watched  European  equilibrum,  the  con¬ 
fession  that  man  is  a  wild  beast,  which  as  soon  as  it  has 
espied  a  weaker  one  near  it,  infallibly  falls  upon  it  ?  And 
do  not  we  daily  receive  the  confirmation  of  this  in  a  small 
way  ?  But  to  the  limitless  egoism  of  our  nature  there 
allies  itself  yet  again  the  store  of  hatred,  anger,  envy, 
rancor,  and  malice  present  more  or  less  in  every  human 
breast,  and  collected  like  the  poison  in  the  gland  of  the 
snake’s  tooth  and  only  awaiting  the  opportunity  to  free 
itself,  and  then  like  an  unchained  demon  to  ramp  and 
rage.  If  no  great  opportunity  for  it  presents  itself  it  will 
at  last  use  the  smallest,  enlarging  it  by  its  imagination, 

«  Quantulacunque  adeo  est  occasio,  sufficit  iras.® 

(( Juv.  Sat.®  xiii.  v.  183. 

and  will  then  carry  things  as  far  as  it  can  and  dare.  We 
see  this  in  daily  life  where  such  eruptions  are  known 
under  the  expression  (<to  pour  out  one’s  gall  on  some¬ 
thing.  ®  It  has  been  observed,  moreover,  that  when  it  has 
met  with  no  resistance  the  subject  of  it  finds  himself 
much  better  after  it.  That  anger  is  not  without  pleasure 
Aristotle  has  observed:  to  opyiZeoftai  rjdb  ((<  Rhet. w  I.,  11,  II., 
2),  where  he  also  quotes  the  passage  from  Homer  which 
declares  anger  to  be  sweeter  than  honey.  But  one  does 
not  devote  oneself  con  amore  merely  to  anger,  but  also 
to  hatred,  which  is  related  to  it  as  the  chronic  to  the  acute 
disease. 


ON  ETHICS 


279 


<(Now  hatred  is  by  far  the  longest  pleasure: 

Men  love  in  haste,  but  they  detest  at  leisure. » 

Byron ,  (<Don  Juan,®  c.  xiii.  6. 

Gobineau  ((( Des  Races  Humaines w)  has  called  man 
l' animal  m^chant par  excellence ,  which  people  take  offense 
at  because  they  feel  it  touches  them.  But  he  is  right, 
for  man  is  the  only  animal  which  causes  others  pain 
without  any  further  object  than  that  of  doing  so.  The 
other  animals  never  do  it  otherwise  than  to  satisfy  their 
hunger  or  in  the  heat  of  conflict.  Although  it  is  said  of 
the  tiger  that  he  kills  more  than  he  eats,  yet  he  strangles 
everything  with  the  intention  of  eating  it  so  that  it  is  a 
case  merely  to  be  expressed  by  the  French  phrase  ses 
yeux  sont  plus  grands  que  son  estomac.  No  animal  ever 
tortures  for  the  sake  of  torturing  but  man,  and  this  con¬ 
stitutes  the  devilish  character  in  him  which  is  far  worse 
than  the  merely  animal.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the 
matter  on  a  great  scale,  but  on  the  small  it  is  no  less 
clear,  as  everyone  has  daily  opportunity  of  observing. 
For  instance,  two  young  dogs  are  playing  with  one  an¬ 
other —  a  peaceful  and  pretty  sight  —  and  a  child  of  three 
or  four  years  comes  upon  the  scene ;  the  child  will  almost 
inevitably  strike  in  violently  with  its  whip  or  stick  and 
thereby  show  it  is  already  /’ animal  mcchant  par  excellence  ! 
Even  constant  purposeless  teasing  and  mischief  spring 
from  this  source.  For  example,  if  one  has  expressed 
one’s  dislike  of  something  disturbing,  or  some  other 
small  unpleasantness,  people  will  not  be  wanting  who  will 
bring  it  about  for  that  very  reason  —  animal  mechant  par 
excellence !  This  is  indeed  so  certain,  that  one  has  to  be 
careful  of  expressing  one’s  annoyance  at  small  discom¬ 
forts;  as  also  on  the  other  hand,  one’s  gratification  at 
any  trifle.  For  in  the  latter  case  they  are  likely  to'  do 
as  the  jailer  who  as  soon  as  he  discovered  that  his  pris¬ 
oner  had  completed  the  difficult  task  of  taming  a  spider 
and  found  pleasure  in  it,  at  once  crushed  it:  l' animal 
mcchant  par  excellence!  Hence  all  animals  instinctively 
fear  the  look  or  indeed  even  the  trace  of  man,  the  ani¬ 
mal  mfchant  par  excellence.  Instinct  does  not  deceive 
here ;  for  only  man  hunts  prey  which  is  neither  useful  to 
him  nor  injures  him. 


28o 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


There  really  resides  in  the  heart  of  each  of  us  a 
wild  beast  which  only  waits  the  opportunity  to  rage  and 
rave  in  order  to  injure  others,  and  which  if  they  pre¬ 
vent  it,  would  like  to  destroy  them.  Hence  arises  all  the 
pleasure  in  fighting  the  war;  and  it  is  this  which  gives 
the  understanding,  its  special  keeper,  always  enough  to 
do  to  overcome  and  to  hold  it  in  some  measure  within 
bounds.  One  may  indeed  call  it  the  radical  evil,  with 
which  those  for  whom  a  word  takes  the  place  of  an  ex¬ 
planation  may  be  contented.  But  I  say  it  is  the  Will  to 
live  which,  embittered  more  and  more  by  the  constant 
sorrows  of  existence,  seeks  to  lighten  its  own  suffering 
by  causing  the  same  to  others.  In  this  way  it  gradually 
develops  genuine  malice  and  cruelty.  One  may  also  ob¬ 
serve  in  this  connection  that  as,  according  to  Kant,  mat¬ 
ter  only  obtains  by  the  antagonism  of  expansive  and 
contractive  force,  so  human  society  only  exists  through 
that  of  hatred  or  anger  or  fear.  For  the  ferocity  of  our 
nature  would  probably  make  every  one  a  murderer  at 
once  were  it  not  mingled  with  the  necessary  dose  of  fear 
to  hold  it  within  bounds,  and  this  again  would  make  it 
the  mock  and  plaything  of  every  child  if  anger  were  not 
ready  to  hand,  and  keeping  watch. 

But  the  worst  trait  in  human  nature  is  the  malicious 
pleasure  in  mischief  which  is  nearly  akin  to  cruelty,  and 
indeed  distinguishes  itself  therefrom  only  as  theory  from 
practice,  and  which  appears  generally  where  sympathy 
ought  to  find  a  place,  sympathy,  as  its  opposite,  being 
the  only  true  source  of  all  genuine  righteousness  and  hu¬ 
man  love.  In  another  sense  envy  is  opposed  to  sympathy 
in  so  far,  namely,  as  it  is  called  forth  by  the  opposite  oc¬ 
casion.  Hence  its  opposition  to  sympathy  rests  directly 
on  opportunity,  and  displays  itself  in  feeling  also  as  a 
consequence  of  this.  Hence  moreover  envy,  although  to 
be  condemned,  is  at  least  capable  of  an  excuse  and  emi¬ 
nently  human,  while  the  mere  pleasure  in  mischief  is 
diabolical  and  its  mockery  the  laughter  of  hell.  It  pre¬ 
sents  itself,  as  already  said,  just  where  sympathy  should 
appear;  envy,  on  the  contrary,  only  there  where  no  oc¬ 
casion  for  the  latter  exists,  but  rather  for  its  opposite, 
and  as  this  opposite  it  arises  in  the  human  breast,  and 


ON  ETHICS 


281 


is  therefore  in  so  far  a  human  emotion;  I  fear,  indeed, 
that  no  one  will  be  found  entirely  free  from  it.  For  that 
Man  in  looking  upon  alien  enjoyment  and  possession 
should  feel  his  own  want  the  more  bitterly  is  natural 
and  indeed  inevitable ;  only  it  ought  not  to  excite  his  ha¬ 
tred  against  the  more  fortunate,  but  precisely  in  this  envy 
properly-speaking  consists.  But  envy  should  least  of  all 
find  a  place  where,  not  the  gifts  of  fortune,  or  of  chance, 
or  the  favor  of  others,  but  where  that  of  nature  is  the 
cause  of  them,  since  everything  inborn  rests  upon  a  meta¬ 
physical  basis,  that  is,  has  a  justification  of  a  higher  kind, 
and  is,  so  to  say,  of  God’s  grace.  But  unfortunately 
with  envy  it  is  exactly  opposite.  To  personal  advantages 
it  is  most  irreconcilable;  hence  understanding,  and  even 
genius,  have  at  first  to  beg  for  forgiveness  of  the  world, 
wherever  they  are  not  in  a  position  to  venture  proudly 
and  boldly  to  despise  the  world.  When,  namely,  envy 
has  been  excited  merely  by  riches,  rank,  or  power,  it  is 
often  damped  by  egoism,  inasmuch  as  the  latter  sees, 
that  in  certain  cases  help,  enjoyment,  assistance,  protec¬ 
tion,  advantage,  etc.,  is  to  be  hoped  for,  or  that  at  least 
by  association  with  it  one  is  illumined  by  the  reflection 
of  its  importance  and  may  even  enjoy  honor.  There  is, 
moreover,  always  the  hope  of  at  sometime  or  other  at¬ 
taining  these  good  things  oneself.  On  the  other  hand 
with  natural  gifts  and  personal  excellences  such  as,  with 
women  beauty,  with  men  intellect,  the  envy  directed  upon 
them  derives  no  consolation  of  the  one  kind  or  hope  of 
the  other,  so  that  nothing  remains  for  it  but  to  hate  those 
so  privileged,  bitterly  and  irreconcilably.  Hence  its  only 
wish  is  to  take  revenge  on  its  object.  But  in  this  it 
finds  itself  in  the  unfortunate  position  that  all  its  blows 
fall  powerless  as  soon  as  it  appears  that  they  have  pro¬ 
ceeded  from  it.  Hence  it  hides  itself  as  carefully  as  secret 
sins  of  lust,  and  is  an  inexhaustible  inventor  of  devices, 
tricks,  and  dodges  in  order  to  mask  and  conceal  itself  so 
that  it  may  wound  its  object  unseen.  The  excellences, 
for  example,  which  consume  its  heart  it  will  ignore  with 
the  most  innocent  mien,  it  will  not  see  them  nor  know 
them,  it  will  never  have  noticed  or  heard  of  them, 
and  will  show  itself  a  past  master  in  dissimulation. 


282 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


With  the  greatest  refinement  it  will  entirely  overlook  the 
brilliant  qualities  which  gnaw  at  his  heart,  seemingly  as 
though  they  were  insignificant,  it  will  be  quite  unaware  of 
them  and  have  opportunely  quite  forgotten  them.  But 
it  will  above  all  things  be  concerned  carefully  to  remove 
by  secret  machination  all  opportunity  for  these  excellences 
to  show  themselves  and  become  known.  It  will  then  eject 
from  the  darkness  blame,  mockery,  contempt,  and  calumny, 
like  the  toad  that  spits  forth  its  poison  from  its  hole. 
None  the  less  will  it  enthusiastically  praise  insignificant 
men,  or  the  mediocre,  or  the  bad,  in  the  same  class  of 
achievement.  In  short  it  becomes  a  Proteus  in  stratagem 
in  order  to  wound  without  showing  itself.  But  what  does 
it  avail  ?  The  practiced  eye  recognizes  it  notwithstanding. 
Its  fear  and  fight  before  its  object  already  betrays  it, 
the  object  which  stands  by  so  much  the  more  alone,  the 
more  brilliant  it  is.  For  this  reason  pretty  girls  have  no 
female  friends.  Its  hate  without  any  occasion  betrays  it, 
a  hate  which  breaks  out  in  the  most  violent  explosion  at 
the  least,  often  indeed,  a  merely  imaginary,  occasion. 
For  the  rest,  however  widespread  its  family  may  be,  one 
recognizes  it  in  the  universal  praise  of  modesty,  that  sly 
virtue  invented  for  the  benefit  of  flat  commonplaceness, 
which  nevertheless  by  the  necessity  that  displays  itself 
of  sparing  mediocrity  brings  it  rather  into  the  light. 
There  can  assuredly  be  nothing  more  flattering  for  our 
conceit  and  our  pride  than  the  sight  of  envy  lurking  and 
carrying  on  its  machinations  in  its  hiding  place.  But 
one  should  never  forget  that  where  envy  is,  hate  accom¬ 
panies  it,  and  one  should  guard  against  allowing  the  en- 
vier  to  become  a  false  friend.  His  discovery  is  therefore 
of  importance  for  our  safety.  One  should  therefore  study 
him  in  order  to  be  up  to  his  tricks,  for  he  is  every¬ 
where  to  be  found,  and  always  goes  about  incognito ,  or, 
like  the  poisonous  toad,  lurks  in  dark  holes.  He  deserves 
indeed  neither  consideration  nor  sympathy,  but  let  the 
motto  be: — 


«No  mortal  envy  can  appease; 

’Twere  best  to  scorn  her  at  your  ease, 
Thy  fame  and  fortune  are  her  pain; 
Thus  in  her  torment  find  your  gain!» 


ON  ETHICS 


283 


If,  as  we  have  here  done,  we  keep  human  badness  before 
our  mind’s  eye,  and  feel  inclined  to  be  horrified  at  it,  one 
must  cast  a  glance  at  the  misery  of  human  existence,  and 
again  at  the  former,  if  one  is  shocked  at  this.  We  shall 
then  find  that  they  keep  each  other  in  equilibrium,  and 
shall  become  aware  of  eternal  justice  when  we  observe 
that  the  world  itself  is  the  world-tribunal,  and  we  shall 
begin  to  understand  why  all  that  lives  must  pay  the  pen¬ 
alty  of  its  existence,  first  in  life,  and  then  in  death.  The 
malam  pcene  appears  therefore  in  agreement  with  the 
malam  culpce.  From  the  same  standpoint  our  indignation 
at  the  intellectual  incapacity  of  the  majority  which  so 
frequently  disgusts  us  in  life  becomes  dissipated.  Hence 
miseria  humana,  nequitia  humana  and  stultitia  humana  com¬ 
pletely  cover  one  another  in  this  Sansara  of  the  Buddhists, 
and  are  of  equal  amount.  But  if  we  once  on  special  occa¬ 
sion  keep  one  of  these  in  mind  and  sample  it  specially,  it 
then  seems  to  exceed  both  the  others  in  amount,  but  this 
is  illusion  and  merely  the  consequence  of  their  colossal 
range. 

Everything  proclaims  this  Sansara,  but  more  than  any¬ 
thing  the  human  world  in  which,  morally,  badness  and 
baseness,  intellectually,  incapacity  and  stupidity,  dominate 
to  a  frightful  degree.  Nevertheless,  there  appear  in  it, 
sporadically  perhaps,  but  yet  surprising  us  ever,  anew, 
phenomena  of  honesty,  of  goodness,  of  nobility,  as  also  of 
great  understanding  of  the  thinking  intellect,  and  even  of 
genius.  These  never  become  quite  extinct,  they  glitter  at 
us  like  isolated  shining  spots  from  out  of  the  great  dark 
mass.  We  must  take  them  as  a  pledge  that  a  good  and 
saving  principle  is  hidden  in  this  Sansara,  which  can  mani¬ 
fest  itself,  and  fill  and  free  the  whole. 

The  readers  of  my  (<  Ethics  ®  know  that  the  foundation  of 
morals  rests  with  me  finally  on  the  truth  which  has  its 
expression  in  the  Veda  and  Vedanta  in  the  established 
mystical  formula  Tat  twam  asi  (this  art  thou),  which  is 
pronounced  with  reference  to  every  living  thing,  be  it  man 
or  animal,  and  is  there  termed  the  Maha-vakya. 

One  may,  indeed,  regard  conduct  in  accordance  there¬ 
with,  as  for  instance  benevolence,  as  the  beginning  of 


284 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


mysticism.  Every  benevolent  action  practiced  from  a 
pure  motive  proclaims  that  he  who  practices  it  stands  in 
direct  contradiction  to  the  phenomenal  world  in  which 
other  individuals  are  entirely  separate  from  himself,  and 
recognizes  himself  as  identical  with  them.  Every  quite 
disinterested  service  is  accordingly  a  mysterious  action,  a 
mysterium;  and  hence  in  order  to  give  an  explanation  of  it 
men  have  had  to  take  refuge  in  all  sorts  of  fictions.  After 
Kant  had  removed  from  Theism  all  other  supports  he 
merely  left  it  this  one,  namely,  that  it  afforded  the  best 
explanation  of  the  above  and  all  mysterious  actions  sim¬ 
ilar  to  it.  He  admitted  it  accordingly  as  a  theoretically 
unprovable,  but  for  practical  purposes  valid  assumption. 
But  that  he  was  altogether  serious  in  this  I  am  inclined 
to  doubt.  For  to  support  morals  by  means  of  Theism  is 
equivalent  to  reducing  them  to  egoism :  although  the 
English,  like  the  lowest  classes  of  society  with  us,  do  not 
see  the  possibility  of  any  other  foundation. 

The  recognition  above  referred  to,  of  one’s  own  true 
essence  in  a  strange  individuality  manifesting  itself 
objectively  appears  especially  clear  and  beautiful  in  those 
cases  where  a  human  being  already  hopelessly  sacrificed, 
concerns  himself  with  anxious  care  and  active  zeal  for 
the  welfare  and  rescue  of  others.  There  is  a  well-known 
story  in  this  connection  of  a  servant  girl,  who  at  night, 
in  the  courtyard,  being  bitten  by  a  mad  dog,  giving  her¬ 
self  up  for  lost,  seizes  the  dog,  drags  it  into  the  stable, 
and  locks  it  up  there  that  no  one  else  might  become  its 
victim.  Similarly  that  incident  in  Naples  which  Tisch- 
bein  has  perpetuated  in  bne  of  his  water  color  drawings. 
Flying  before  the  lava  as  it  streams  toward  the  sea,  a 
son  carries  his  old  father  on  his  back ;  but  as  at  last  only 
a  narrow  strip  of  land  divides  the  two  destructive  ele¬ 
ments,  the  father  tells  his  son  to  lay  him  down  in  order 
that  he  may  save  himself  by  running,  since  otherwise 
both  would  be  lost.  The  son  obeys,  and  as  he  goes 
throws  a  last  parting  look  at  the  father.  This  is  repre¬ 
sented  in  the  picture.  Of  this  kind  also  is  the  historical 
fact  which  Walter  Scott  depicts  with  masterly  hand  in 
(<The  Heart  of  Midlothian,®  chapter  ii. ,  where  of  two 
delinquents  condemned  to  death  the  one  who  by  his 


ON  ETHICS 


285 


clumsiness  had  been  the  cause  of  the  capture  of  the  other, 
successfully  frees  him  in  the  church  after  the  death  ser¬ 
mon,  by  vigorously  overpowering  the  watch  without  mak¬ 
ing  any  attempt  for  himself.  We  may  reckon  also  in  this 
connection,  although  it  may  offend  the  occidental  reader, 
the  often  reprinted  engraving  of  a  soldier  already  kneel¬ 
ing  to  be  shot  zealously  driving  back  his  dog,  who  is 
running  toward  him,  with  a  handkerchief.  In  all  cases  of 
this  kind  we  see  an  individual  who  is  approaching  his 
immediate  personal  destruction  with  complete  certainty, 
thinking  no  more  of  his  own  preservation  and  directing 
his  whole  care  and  endeavor  to  the  preservation  of  an¬ 
other.  How  could  the  consciousness  more  clearly  express 
itself  that  this  destruction  is  only  that  of  a  phenomenon, 
and  is  therefore  itself  phenomenon,  while  the  true  essence 
of  the  perishing  being  remains  untouched,  continues  in 
the  other,  in  which  even  now,  as  its  action  shows,  it  so 
clearly  recognizes  itself!  For  how,  if  this  were  not  so, 
but  if  we  had  a  being  before  us  in  the  throes  of  real 
annihilation,  could  such  a  one  by  the  supreme  exertion 
of  its  last  powers  show  such  an  intense  interest  in  the 
welfare  and  continuance  of  another  ? 

There  are  indeed  two  opposite  ways  in  which  to  be¬ 
come  conscious  of  one’s  own  existence:  firstly,  in  empi¬ 
rical  intuition  as  displayed  from  the  outside  as  an  infinitely 
small  being  in  a  world  limitless  in  time  and  space;  as 
one  among  the  thousand  millions  of  human  beings  which 
run  to  and  fro  on  this  earth  for  a  very  short  time,  re¬ 
newing  themselves  every  thirty  years ;  secondly,  in  so  far 
as  one  sinks  oneself  within  oneself  and  becomes  conscious 
of  being  all  in  all  and  in  very  deed  the  only  real  being, 
which  sees  itself  again  in  the  other  given  it  from  without, 
as  in  a  mirror.  Now  the  first  mode  of  knowledge  em¬ 
braces  merely  the  phenomenon  mediated  through  the 
principium  individuationis,  but  the  other  is  an  immediate 
consciousness  of  itself  as  the  thing-in-itself  —  is  a  doctrine 
in  which  I,  as  regards  the  first  part,  have  Kant  with 
me,  but  in  both  the  Vedas.  The  simple  objection  to  the 
latter  mode  of  knowledge  is  that  it  presupposes  that  one 
and  the  same  being  can  be  in  different  places  at  the 
same  time.  But  although,  from  the  empirical  standpoint, 


286 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


this  is  the  most  palpable  impossibility  and,  indeed, 
absurdity,  it  remains,  notwithstanding,  perfectly  true  of 
the  thing-in-itself ;  because  this  impossibility  and  absurdity 
merely  rests  on  the  forms  of  the  phenomenon  which  con¬ 
stitute  the  principium  individuationis.  For  the  thing-in- 
itself,  the  Will-to-live,  is  in  every  being,  even  the  least 
—  is  present,  whole  and  undivided  as  completely  as  in  all 
that  ever  were,  are,  and  will  be,  taken  together.  On 
this  is  based  the  fact  that  every  being,  even  the  least, 
says  to  himself,  Dum  ego  salvus  sim  pereat  mundus.  And 
in  truth  of  all  [other  beings  perished,  in  this  one  that 
remained,  the  whole  essence  in  itself  of  the  world,  un¬ 
injured  and  unlessened,  would  laugh  at  its  destruction  as 
at  a  play  of  jugglery.  This  is  certainly  a  conclusion  per 
impossibile  to  which  one  is  equally  justified  in  opposing 
the  opposite  that  if  any  being,  even  the  least,  were 
wholly  destroyed  the  whole  world  would  perish  with  it. 
In  this  sense  the  mystic  Angelus  Silesius  says: 

«I  know  that  not  one  moment  can  God  live  from  me  apart 
If  I  to  nothingness  am  brought,  His  spirit  must  depart.® 

But  in  order  that  this  truth,  or  at  least  the  possibility, 
that  our  own  self  may  exist  in  other  beings,  whose  con¬ 
sciousness  is  separate  and  distinct  from  ours,  may  be 
seen  to  some  extent  even  from  the  empirical  standpoint, 
we  only  require  to  recall  to  mind  the  magnetized  som- 
nambules  whose  identical  I  after  they  are  awakened 
knows  nothing  of  all  that  which  a  moment  before  they 
have  themselves  said,  done,  and  suffered.  The  individual 
consciousness  therefore  is  so  entirely  phenomenal  a  point, 
that  even  in  the  same  I,  two  such  may  arise,  of  which 
the  one  knows  nothing  of  the  other. 

Considerations,  however,  like  the  foregoing,  retain  in 
our  Judaized  west  a  strange  appearance;  but  not  so  in  the 
fatherland  of  the  human  race,  in  that  land  where  an 
entirely  different  faith  dominates,  a  faith  in  accordance 
with  which  even  to-day,  after  the  burial,  the  priests  before 
all  the  people  and  with  the  accompaniment  of  instru¬ 
ments  chant  the  Veda  Hymn  which  begins: 

<(The  embodied  spirit  which  has  a  thousand  heads,  a 
thousand  eyes,  a  thousand  feet,  has  its  root  in  the  human 


ON  ETHICS 


287 


breast  and  interpenetrates  at  once  the  whole  earth.  This 
being  is  the  world  and  all  that  was  and  will  be.  It  is 
that  which  grows  by  nourishment  and  which  confers 
immortality.  Such  is  its  greatness,  and  hence  it  is  the 
most  noble  embodied  spirit.  The  elements  of  this  world 
constitute  one  part  of  his  being  and  three  parts  are 
immortality  in  heaven.  These  three  parts  have  raised 
themselves  from  the  world ;  but  the  one  part  has  remained 
behind  and  is  that  which  (by  transmigration)  enjoys  and 
does  not  enjoy  the  fruits  of  good  and  evil  deeds, ®  etc. 
See  Colebrooke  on  (<  Religious  Ceremonies  of  the  Hin¬ 
doos,”  in  vol.  v.  <(  Asiatic  Researches,”  p.  345  of  the  Cal¬ 
cutta  edition,  also  in  his  Miscellaneous  Essays,”  vol.  i., 
p.  167. 

If  one  compares  such  hymns  with  our  hymn-books  it 
will  no  longer  be  wondered  at  that  the  Anglican  Mis¬ 
sionaries  on  the  Ganges  do  such  bad  business,  and  with 
their  sermons  on  their  <(  maker  ”  made  no  impression 
upon  the  Brahmin.  He,  however,  who  would  enjoy  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  how  forty-one  years  ago  an  English 
officer  boldly  and  emphatically  opposed  himself  to  the  ab¬ 
surd  and  shameless  pretensions  of  these  gentlemen  should 
read,  ttThe  Vindication  of  the  Hindoos  from  the  Asper¬ 
sions  of  the  Rev.  Claudius  Buchanan,  with  a  refutation  of 
his  arguments  in  favor  of  an  ecclesiastical  establishment 
in  British  India;  the  whole  tending  to  evince  the  excel¬ 
lence  of  the  moral  system  of  the  Hindoos;  by  a  Bengal 
Officer.  Lond.  1808.”  The  author  there  explains  with 
rare  independence  the  advantages  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Hindoo  faith  over  those  of  the  European.  The  little  work, 
which  in  German  would  fill  about  five  sheets,  deserves  still 
to  be  translated,  for  it  expounds  better  and  more  honestly 
than  any  other  known  to  me  the  benevolent  practical  in¬ 
fluences  of  Brahminism,  its  effect  on  life  and  on  the  people 
—  very  differently  to  the  reports  emanating  from  clerical 
pens  which  for  that  very  reason  deserve  little  credence, 
but  agreeing  notwithstanding  with  what  I  have  heard  ver¬ 
bally  from  English  officers  who  have  spent  half  their  life 
in  India.  In  order  to  know  how  jealous  and  furious  is  the 
Anglican  Church,  trembling  for  its  benefices,  at  Brahmin¬ 
ism,  one  should  have  heard  the  loud  bellowing  which  some 


288 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


years  ago  the  bishops  raised  in  Parliament,  continued 
for  months  together,  and  as  the  East  Indian  authorities, 
as  usual  on  such  occasions,  showed  themselves  unyield¬ 
ing,  set  up  again  and  again,  and  all  merely  because  the 
English  authorities,  as  was  only  fair  in  India,  displayed 
some  external  signs  of  honor  toward  the  ancient  vener¬ 
able  religion  of  the  country  —  e.  g. ,  that  when  the  proces¬ 
sion  of  the  gods  passed  by,  the  watch  with  the  officer  at 
its  head  came  out  and  saluted  with  a  roll  of  the  drum; 
also  that  a  red  cloth  was  furnished  to  cover  the  Car  of 
Juggernaut,  etc.  The  latter  has  really  been  done  away 
with  together  with  the  pilgrim  dues  which  were  raised 
in  connection  with  it  in  order  to  please  these  gentlemen. 
In  the  meantime  the  independent  driveling  of  these  self¬ 
styling  right-reverend  holders  of  benefices  and  surplices 
over  such  things,  together  with  the  quite  mediaeval  man¬ 
ner,  which  nowadays  sounds  so  rough  and  brutal,  in 
which  they  expressed  themselves,  also  the  bitter  annoy¬ 
ance  which  it  caused  them  that  Lord  Ellenborough,  in 
1845,  brought  back  in  a  triumphal  procession  to  Bengal 
and  gave  up  to  the  Brahmins  the  Gate  of  the  Pagoda  of 
Sumenaut  destroyed  by  Mahmud  the  Gahznewid;  all  this, 
I  say,  let  us  suppose  that  it  is  not  unknown  to  them 
how  much  the  majority  of  Europeans  who  live  long  in 
India  are  predisposed  in  their  hearts  toward  Brahminism 
and  how  they  only  shrug  their  shoulders  at  the  religion, 
as  at  the  social  prejudices,  of  Europe.  <(  That  all  falls 
off  like  scales  after  one  has  lived  two  years  in  India,” 
said  such  a  one  to  me  on  one  occasion.  Even  a  French¬ 
man,  that  very  obliging  and  cultivated  gentleman  who 
about  ten  years  accompanied  the  Dewardussi  (vulgo  Bay¬ 
aderes)  to  Europe,  as  I  was  speaking  with  him  respect¬ 
ing  the  religion  of  the  country,  exclaimed  immediately 
with  fiery  enthusiasm,  (<  Monsieur,  c’est  la  vrai  religion !  ” 
It  is  nevertheless  extremely  droll,  by  the  way,  to  see  the 
comfortable  smiling  self-sufficiency  with  which  certain 
servile  German  philosophasters,  as  also  some  cut  and 
dried  Orientalists,  look  down  from  the  heights  of  their 
rationalistic  Judaism,  upon  Brahminism  and  Buddhism. 
To  such  mediocrities  I  would  seriously  venture  to  pro¬ 
pose  an  engagement  with  the  apes’  comedy  at  the  Frank- 


ON  ETHICS 


289 


fort  Fair,  if  indeed  the  successors  of  Hanuman  would 
tolerate  them  among  them. 

I  think  that  if  the  Emperor  of  China  or  the  King  of 
Siam  and  other  Asiatic  monarchs  concede  to  the  European 
power  the  permission  to  send  missionaries  into  their 
lands  they  would  be  quite  justified  in  doing  so,  only 
under  the  condition  that  they  might  send  exactly  as 
many  Buddhist  priests  with  equal  rights  into  the  Euro¬ 
pean  land  in  question,  choosing  for  this  purpose  naturally 
those  who  were  previously  well  instructed  in  the  partic¬ 
ular  European  language  with  which  they  had  to  do. 
We  should  then  have  before  our  eyes  an  interesting 
competition,  and  see  which  of  them  achieved  the  most. 

Even  the  fantastic  and  sometimes  quaint  Hindoo  myth¬ 
ology  as  it  to-day,  no  less  than  thousands  of  years  ago, 
makes  up  the  religion  of  the  people,  is,  if  one  goes  to 
the  root  of  the  matter,  only  the  allegorized  ( i.  e. ,  clad  in 
images,  and  so  personified  and  mythisized  as  to  be  suited 
to  the  capacity  of  the  people )  doctrine  of  the  Upanishads , 
which  every  Hindoo,  according  to  the  measure  of  his 
powers  and  education,  either  feels,  or  has  a  presentiment 
of,  or  seeing  through  it,  clearly  understands;  while  the 
coarse  and  narrow-minded  English  reverend  mocks  and 
blasphemes  it  as  idolatry,  in  the  belief  that  he  alone  is 
in  the  right  box.  The  purpose  of  the  Buddha  Sakya 
Muni,  on  the  contrary,  was  to  separate  the  kernel  from 
the  shell,  to  free  the  high  doctrine  itself  from  all  admix¬ 
ture  with  images  and  gods,  and  to  make  its  pure  content 
accessible  and  comprehensible  even  to  the  people.  In 
this  he  succeeded  wonderfully,  and  hence  his  religion  is 
most  excellent,  and  represented  by  the  greatest  number 
of  adherents  upon  earth.  He  can  say  with  Sophocles: 

—  fikv  Kav  6  fiT/dev  uv  opov 

Kparog  KaTaKTijaatr'  •  eyu  de  nal  dixa 
kelvuv  tc trcoLda  rovf  ETnanaoEiv  uteog. 

^Ajax,®  767-69. 

Christian  fanaticism,  which  seeks  to  convert  the  whole 
world  to  its  faith,  is  irresponsible.  Sir  James  Brooke 
(Rajah  of  Borneo),  who  colonized  and,  for  a  time,  ruled 
a  portion  of  Borneo,  delivered  an  address  in  September, 
19 


290 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


1858,  at  Liverpool,  before  a  meeting  of  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  —  that  is,  the  centre  of  Mis¬ 
sions —  in  which  he  said:  (<  You  have  made  no  progress 
with  the  Mahometans,  and  with  the  Hindoos  you  have 
made  no  progress  at  all,  but  are  precisely  at  the  point 
where  you  were  on  the  first  day  on  which  you  set  foot  in 
India®  (“Times,®  29th  September,  1858).  The  emissaries 
of  the  Christian  faith  have  nevertheless  shown  themselves 
very  useful  and  praiseworthy  in  another  direction,  since 
some  of  them  have  furnished  us  with  excellent  and 
complete  reports  on  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism  and 
true  and  careful  translations  of  the  holy  books  such  as 
could  only  have  been  possible  to  have  been  done  con 
amove.  I  dedicate  the  following  rhyme  to  these  worthy 
persons : 

«  As  teachers  ye  went  hither, 

As  pupils  ye  came  hither, 

From  the  unveiled  sense 
Fell  what  ye  took  from  hence.  » 

We  may,  therefore,  hope  that  there  will  be  a  time 
when  all  Europe  will  be  purified  from  Jewish  mythology. 
The  century  has  perhaps  come,  in  which  the  peoples  of 
Asia  springing  from  the  Japhetic  stem  will  again  receive 
the  holy  religions  of  their  home,  for  after  long  wander¬ 
ing  from  the  path  they  are  again  ripe  for  them. 

After  my  prize  essay  on  ®  Moral  Freedom  ®  it  can  re¬ 
main  doubtful  to  no  thinking  man  that  this  is  to  be 
sought  for  nowhere  in  nature,  but  only  outside  of  nature. 
It  is  a  metaphysical  fact,  but  in  the  physical  world  an 
impossibility.  Nevertheless  our  individual  acts  are  in  no 
sense  free.  But  the  individual  character  of  each  is  to  be 
regarded  as  his  free  act.  He  himself  is  such,  because  he 
once  for  all  wills  to  be  such.  For  the  Will  exists  in 
itself  even  in  so  far  as  it  appears  in  an  individual:  it 
constitutes,  that  is  to  say,  the  original  and  fundamental 
Will  of  the  same,  independent  of  all  knowledge,  because 
preceding  it.  From  knowledge  it  receives  merely  the 
motives  by  which  it  successively  develops  its  essence, 
and  makes  itself  known,  or  becomes  visible ;  but  it  is 
itself  as  lying  outside  time,  unchangeable  so  long  as  it 
exists  at  all.  Hence  each  one,  since  as  such  he  exists 


ON  ETHICS 


291 


only  once,  and  under  the  circumstances  of  his  time,  but 
which  on  their  side  appear  with  strict  necessity,  can 
never  do  anything  else  but  precisely  what  he  does  now. 
The  entire  empirical  course  of  the  life  of  a  man  is  ac¬ 
cordingly,  in  all  its  events,  great  and  small,  as  neces¬ 
sarily  predetermined  as  the  works  of  a  clock.  At  bottom 
this  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  manner  in  which  the 
aforesaid  metaphysically  free  act  comes  into  the  cognizing 
consciousness  is  a  preception  which  has  time  and  space 
for  its  form,  by  means  of  which  the  unity  and  indivisi¬ 
bility  of  that  act  displays  itself  as  torn  asunder  into  a 
series  of  states  and  events  which  follow  the  clue  of  the 
principle  of  cause  in  its  four  forms  —  and  this  is  termed 
necessity.  But  the  result  is  a  moral  one,  viz,  this;  by 
that  which  we  do  we  know  what  we  are,  in  the  same 
way  that  by  that  which  we  suffer  we  know  what  we  deserve. 

From  this  it  follows  further  that  the  individuality 
does  not  rest  alone  on  the  principio  individuationis,  and 
hence  is  not  through  and  through  mere  phenomenon, 
but  that  it  has  its  root  in  the  thing-in-itself,  in  the  will 
of  the  individual,  for  even  his  character  is  individual. 
How  deeply  its  roots  penetrate  here  belongs  to  those 
questions  whose  answer  I  do  not  undertake;  but  it  de¬ 
serves  here  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  even  Plato  in  his 
way  presents  the  individuality  of  each  as  his  own  free 
act,  since  he  makes  him  to  be  born  in  consequence  of 
his  heart  and  character,  such  as  he  is,  by  means  of 
Metempsychosis  (<(  Phaedr.,”  p.  325  seq.  vol.  x.  ed.  Bip.  ;  <(  De 
Legib.”  x.  p.  106,  ed.  Bip.).  Even  the  Brahmins  on  their 
side  express  the  unchangeable  determination  of  the 
inborn  character  mythically,  in  that  they  say  that 
Brahma  has  in  the  generation  of  every  man  impressed 
his  action  and  his  suffering  in  written  characters  upon 
his  skull,  in  accordance  with  which  his  course  of  life 
must  follow.  They  point  to  the  notches  of  the  sutures 
of  the  skull  bones  as  this  writing.  The  content  of  it  is 
a  consequence  of  his  previous  life  and  conduct  (see 
<(  Lettres  Edifiantes, ®  1819,  vol.  vi.  p.  149,  and  vol.  vii. 
p.  135).  This  insight  appears  to  lie  at  the  foundation 
of  the  Christian  (even  Pauline)  dogma  of  salvation  by 
grace. 


292 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


Another  consequence  of  the  above,  which  entirely  con¬ 
firms  it  empirically,  is  that  all  genuine  merits,  moral  as 
well  as  intellectual,  have  not  merely  a  physical,  or  other¬ 
wise  empirical,  but  a  metaphysical  origin,  are  accord¬ 
ingly  a  priori  and  not  a  posteriori — that  is,  are  innate, 
and  not  acquired,  and  consequently  have  their  root  not  in 
the  mere  phenomenon,  but  in  the  thing-in-itself.  Hence 
each  one  only  accomplishes  that  which  at  bottom  already 
in  his  nature  —  that  is,  in  his  innate  nature  —  is  irrev¬ 
ocably  fixed.  Intellectual  capacities,  indeed,  require 
cultivation  as  many  natural  products  require  direction  in 
order  to  be  enjoyable  or  otherwise  useful.  But  as  here 
no  direction  can  replace  the  original  material,  there  also 
not.  For  this  reason  all  merely  acquired,  learned,  affected 
qualities  —  in  other  words,  qualities  a  posteriori ,  moral  no 
less  than  intellectual  —  are,  properly  speaking,  ungenuine, 
empty  appearance  without  content.  Following  as  this 
does  from  a  correct  metaphysic,  it  is  taught  by  a  deeper 
glance  into  experience.  It  is  evidenced,  indeed,  by  the 
great  weight  which  all  lay  on  physiognomy  and  the  ex¬ 
ternal  appearance  —  that  is,  the  innateness  of  every  man 
in  any  way  distinguished  —  and  hence  by  their  eagerness 
to  see  him.  The  superficial,  indeed,  and  for  good  rea¬ 
sons,  the  commonplace  natures  will  be  of  the  opposite 
opinion,  in  order  to  be  able  to  console  themselves  in 
what  they  lack  that  it  will  come  in  good  time.  This 
world  is,  therefore,  not  merely  a  battle  ground  for  whose 
victories  and  defeats  prizes  will  be  distributed  in  the  fu¬ 
ture,  but  it  is  itself  already  the  last  judgment  in  which 
each  brings  with  him  reward  and  shame  according  to 
his  merits;  and  Brahminism  and  Buddhism,  in  so  far  as 
they  teach  Metempsychosis,  do  not  know  anything  different. 

The  question  has  been  mooted  as  to  what  two  men 
who  had  each  grown  up  quite  alone  in  the  wilderness 
and  who  met  each  other  for  the  first  time  would  do. 
Hobbes,  Pufendorf,  and  Rousseau  have  answered  it  in 
opposite  senses.  Pufendorf  believed  they  would  meet 
each  other  lovingly;  Hobbes,  on  the  contrary,  inimically; 
Rousseau  that  they  would  pass  each  other  by  in  silence. 
All  three  are  right  and  wrong;  for  here  precisely  the 


ON  ETHICS 


293 


immeasurable  diversity  of  the  innate  moral  dispositions 
of  individuals  would  show  itself  in  so  clear  a  light  that 
we  should  here  have,  as  it  were,  the  rule  and  measure  of 
them.  For  there  are  men  with  whom  the  look  of  man 
at  once  excites  a  hostile  feeling,  inasmuch  as  their  inner¬ 
most  being  expresses  itself  (<  not  I ! ”  And  others  there 
are  with  whom  this  look  at  once  excites  friendly  interest ; 
their  innermost  being  says  (<  I  once  more !  ”  In  between 
there  lie  numberless  degrees.  But  that  we  are  in  this 
chief  point  so  fundamentally  different  is  a  great  problem, 
indeed  a  mystery.  Respecting  this  a  priority  of  the  moral 
character,  the  book  of  the  Dane,  Bastholm,  (<  Historical 
Contributions  toward  Knowledge  of  the  Savage  State,” 
affords  material  for  a  variety  of  reflections.  It  surprises 
him  that  the  intellectual  culture  and  moral  goodness  of 
nations  exhibit  themselves  as  quite  independent  of  each 
other  in  that  the  one  is  often  to  be  found  without  the 
other.  We  shall  explain  this  from  the  fact  that  moral 
goodness  does  not  in  any  sense  arise  from  reflection,  the 
development  of  which  is  dependent  upon  intellectual 
culture ;  but  directly  from  the  Will  itself,  whose  structure 
is  innate  and  which  is  in  itself  incapable  of  any  improve¬ 
ment  through  culture.  Bastholm  describes  most  nations 
as  very  vicious  and  bad.  He  has,  on  the  other  hand, 
from  certain  savage  peoples  the  most  generally  excellent 
characteristics  to  report,  as  from  the  Orotchyses,  the  in¬ 
habitants  of  the  island  Sawu,  the  Tumguses,  and  the 
Pelew  Islanders.  He  then  attempts  to  solve  the  problem 
whence  it  comes  that  particular  races  are  so  exceptionally 
good  while  all  their  neighbors  are  bad.  It  seems  to  me 
it  may  be  explained  from  the  fact  that  since  the  moral 
qualities  of  the  father  are  hereditary,  that  in  the  above 
cases  such  an  isolated  race  has  arisen  from  one  family, 
and,  therefore,  sprung  from  the  same  ancestor,  who  hap¬ 
pened  to  have  been  a  good  man,  and  has  maintained 
itself  unmixed.  The  English  have  often  reminded  the 
North  Americans  on  the  occasion  of  unpleasant  incidents, 
such  as  repudiation  of  state  debts,  robber  enterprises, 
etc.,  that  they  are  descended  from  an  English  criminal 
colony,  although  this  is  only  true  of  a  small  portion  of 
them. 


294 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


It  is  wonderful  how  the  individuality  of  every  man 
(z.  <?.,  this  determinate  character  with  this  determinate  in¬ 
tellect)  precisely  determines  like  a  penetrating-  die,  all 
his  actions  and  thoughts  down  to  the  most  insignificant; 
in  consequence  of  which  the  whole  course  of  life,  that 
is,  the  external  and  internal  history  of  the  one  turns  out 
so  totally  different  from  that  of  the  other.  As  a  botanist 
knows  the  whole  plant  from  one  leaf;  as  Cuvier  con¬ 
structed  the  whole  animal  from  one  bone;  so  from  one 
characteristic  action  of  a  man  one  can  attain  to  a  correct 
knowledge  of  his  character  and  thus,  to  a  certain  extent, 
construct  him  from  it.  Even  if  this  action  concerns  a 
trifle  it  is  possible,  indeed  it  then  often  succeeds  best, 
for  in  more  important  things  people  take  more  care, 
but  in  trifles  they  follow  their  nature  without  much  con¬ 
sideration.  Hence  the  accuracy  of  Seneca’s  saying: 
<(  Argumenta  morum  ex  minimis  quoque  licet  capere  ®  (Ep. 
52).  If  anyone  show  in  such  things  by  an  absolutely 
reckless  egoistic  conduct  that  just  views  of  things  are 
foreign  to  his  heart,  one  ought  not  to  trust  him  with  a 
single  groschen  without  adequate  security.  For  who  will 
believe  that  he  who  in  all  other  matters  which  do  not 
touch  property  shows  himself  daily  unjust,  that  one 
whose  boundless  egoism  everywhere  peeps  out  from  the 
small  actions  of  ordinary  life  for  which  he  is  not  called 
to  account,  like  a  dirty  shirt  out  of  the  holes  in  a  ragged 
jacket  —  that  such  a  one  will  be  honorable  in  matters  of 
menni  and  tuuvi  without  any  other  impulse  than  that  of 
Justice  ?  He  who  is  inconsiderate  in  small  things  will 
be  without  scruple  also  in  great.  He  who  leaves  small 
traits  of  character  unnoticed  has  himself  to  thank  if  he 
afterward  learns  to  know  the  character  in  question  to 
his  own  disadvantage  from  the  great.  On  the  same 
principle  one  should  also  at  once  break,  even  with  so- 
called  good  friends,  if  they  betray,  be  it  only  in  trifles, 
a  malicious  or  bad  or  low  character,  in  order  thereby  to 
avoid  their  bad  turns  on  a  larger  scale,  which  only  await 
the  opportunity  to  produce  themselves.  The  same  applies 
to  servants.  One  should  always  think,  <(  better  alone 
than  among  traitors. * 

The  foundation  and  propcedeutic  of  all  knowledge  of 


ON  ETHICS 


295 


men  is  the  conviction  that  the  conduct  of  man  as  a 
whole  and  essentially  is  not  guided  by  his  reason  and  its 
dictates.  Hence  no  one  becomes  this  or  that  because  he 
has  the  wish  to  be  so,  however  strong  it  may  be;  but 
his  action  proceeds  from  his  innate  and  unchangeable 
character,  is  more  closely  and  in  detail  determined  by 
motives,  and  is  consequently  the  necessary  product  of 
these  two  factors.  One  may  accordingly  compare  the 
conduct  of  men  to  the  course  of  a  planet  which  is  the 
result  of  the  tangential  and  centripetal  force  which  ac¬ 
crues  to  it  by  the  operation  of  its  sun,  the  former  force 
representing  the  character,  the  latter  the  influence  of 
motives.  This  is  almost  more  than  a  mere  metaphor, 
inasmuch,  namely,  as  the  tangential  force  from  which 
the  motion  properly  proceeds  while  it  is  limited  by  gravi¬ 
tation  is,  taken  metaphysically,  the  Will  displaying  itself 
in  the  body  in  question. 

He  who  has  understood  this  will  also  see  that  we,  prop¬ 
erly  speaking,  never  have  more  than  a  supposition  as  to 
what  we  shall  do  in  a  future  position  of  affairs,  al¬ 
though  we  often  regard  this  as  an  intention.  If,  for 
example,  a  man  in  consequence  of  a  proposal  has,  with 
perfect  honesty,  and  even  quite  willingly  incurred  the 
obligation  upon  the  occurrence  of  certain  events  still  in 
the  future  to  do  this  or  that,  it  is  not  by  any  means  as¬ 
sured  thereby  that  he  will  fulfill  it  unless  he  be  of  such 
a  nature  that  his  promise  given,  of  itself  and  as  such, 
would  be  always  and  everywhere  a  sufficient  motive  for 
him,  in  that  it,  by  means  of  his  regard  for  his  honor, 
acted  upon  him  as  a  foreign  compulsion.  But  apart  from 
this  what  he  will  do  on  the  occurrence  of  those  circum¬ 
stances  may,  nevertheless,  be  forseen  with  perfect  cer¬ 
tainty  solely  from  a  correct  and  exact  knowledge  of  his 
character  and  of  the  external  circumstances  under  whose  op¬ 
eration  he  has  come.  This  is  indeed  very  easy  if  one  has  ever 
seen  him  once  in  a  similar  position;  for  he  will  infalli¬ 
bly  do  the  same  a  second  time,  presupposing  that  on  the 
first  occasion  he  had  known  the  circumstances  accurately 
and  completely,  for  as  I  have  often  remarked :  <(  Causa 
finalis  non  inovet  secundum  suum  esse  reale ,  sed  secundum 
esse  cognitum*  (.Suarez,  (<disp.  metaph.  disp.w  xxiii.,  sect.  7. 


296 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


et  8),  what,  namely,  he  has  not  known  or  understood  the 
first  time  could  not  operate  upon  his  will.  Just  as  an 
electrical  process  stops,  if  some  isolating-  body  intercepts 
the  action  of  a  conductor.  The  unchangeability  of  char¬ 
acter  and  the  necessity  of  action  proceeding  from  it  im¬ 
presses  itself  with  uncommon  clearness  upon  him  who 
on  some  occasion  has  not  conducted  himself  as  he  ought, 
inasmuch  as  he  has  perhaps  failed  in  decision  or 
firmness,  or  courage,  or  other  qualities  demanded  by  the 
moment.  Now  after  it  is  over  he  knows  and  honestly 
regrets  his  wrong  conduct  and  thinks,  perhaps,  <(  If  only 
that  occurred  to  me  again  I  would  act  differently !  ®  It  does 
occur  to  him  again,  the  same  thing  happens,  and  he  acts 
again  exactly  as  before, —  to  his  great  astonishment.  (Com¬ 
pare  (<  World  as  Will  and  Presentment,®  ii. ,  p.  226,  et  seq.; 
3d  ed.  ii.,  p.  251,  et  seq.)  By  a  long  way  the  best  expla¬ 
nation  of  the  truth  here  under  discussion  is  furnished 
us  by  Shakespeare’s  dramas.  For  he  was  penetrated  by  it 
and  his  intuitive  wisdom  speaks  it  in  concreto  on  every 
side.  I  will,  notwithstanding,  here  exemplify  it  in  a 
case  in  which  it  stands  out  with  special  clearness,  al¬ 
though  without  intention  and  affectation,  since  he  as  a 
true  artist  never  starts  from  conceptions  except  obviously 
in  order  to  satisfy  the  Psychological  truth  as  he  appre¬ 
hended  it  perceptually  and  immediately,  unconcerned  that 
it  would  be  by  few  rightly  regarded  and  understood,  and 
without  any  presentiment  that  in  Germany  dull  and  stupid 
persons  were  destined  to  appear  who  would  elaborately 
explain  that  he  had  written  his  pieces  in  order  to  illus¬ 
trate  moral  common-places.  What  I  here  refer  to,  is  the 
character  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland  which  we  see 
carried  through  three  tragedies,  without  his  appearing  as 
a  leading  personage,  but  only  in  a  few  scenes  which  are 
distributed  over  fifteen  acts,  so  that  he  who  does  not 
read  with  all  his  attention  the  character  displayed  be¬ 
tween  such  long  intervals  may  easily  lose  sight  of  its 
moral  identity,  notwithstanding  the  firmness  with  which 
the  poet  has  kept  it  in  view.  He  makes  this  Earl  every¬ 
where  enter  with  noble  knightly  mien,  use  a  language 
suited  thereto,  and  has  even  put  into  his  mouth  at  times 
very  beautiful  and  even  sublime  passages,  since  he  is  so 


ON  ETHICS 


297 


far  removed  from  doing  as  Schiller  does  who  is  fond  of 
painting  the  devil  black,  and  whose  moral  approval  or 
disapproval  sounds  through  the  very  words  of  the  char¬ 
acters  portrayed  by  him.  But  with  Shakespeare  and  also 
with  Goethe  each  one,  so  long  as  he  is  present  and  speaks, 
is  perfectly  right  even  if  he  be  the  devil  himself.  Com¬ 
pare,  in  this  respect,  the  Duke  of  Alva  with  Goethe  and 
with  Schiller.  We  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  Earl  of 
Northumberland  already  in  (<  Richard  II.®  where  he  is  the 
first  to  stir  up  a  conspiracy  against  the  King  in  favor  of 
Bolingbroke,  afterwards  Henry  IV.,  whom  he  Ulso  (act 
ii.,  scene  3),  personally  flatters.  In  the  following  act  he 
suffers  a  correction  because,  speaking  of  the  King,  he 
simply  said  <(  Richard,  ®  but  gives  the  assurance,  however, 
that  it  was  only  done  for  the  sake  of  brevity.  Soon  after¬ 
ward  his  cunning  speech  moves  the  King  to  capitulation. 
In  the  following  act  he  treats  him  in  the  act  of  abdica¬ 
tion  with  such  hardness  and  contempt  that  the  unhappy 
broken  monarch  for  once  loses  patience  and  exclaims, 
*  Devil !  thou  plaguest  me  already  before  I  am  in  hell.  * 
At  the  conclusion  he  reports  to  the  new  King  that  he 
has  sent  the  decapitated  heads  of  the  adherents  of  the 
former  to  London.  In  the  following  tragedy,  (<  Henry 
IV.,®  he  sets  a  conspiracy  on  foot  in  the  same  way  as 
before,  against  the  new  King.  In  the  fourth  act  we  see 
the  rebels  united,  preparing  themselves  for  the  great 
battle  of  the  following  day  and  waiting  impatiently  for 
him  and  his  army  division.  There  comes  finally  a  letter 
from  him;  he  is  himself  ill  and  could  not  trust  his  men 
to  any  one  else ;  they  should,  however,  courageously  con¬ 
tinue  and  proceed  bravely  to  the  attack.  They  do  it,  but 
are  considerably  weakened  by  his  absence,  are  completely 
beaten,  most  of  their  leaders  are  taken,  and  his  only  son, 
the  heroic  Hotspur,  falls  by  the  hand  of  the  Crown 
Prince.  Again,  in  the  following  piece,  the  <(  Second  Part 
of  Henry  IV.,®  we  see  him  plunged  into  the  wildest 
rage  by  the  death  of  this  son  and  madly  breathing 
out  revenge.  Hence  he  stirs  up  the  rebellion  afresh; 
the  leaders  of  it  assemble  themselves  once  more.  As 
these,  in  the  fourth  act,  have  to  fight  the  decisive 
battle,  and  only  await  his  joining  himself  to  them, 


298 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


there  comes  a  letter;  he  has  not  been  able  to  collect 
sufficient  forces,  and  will  therefore,  for  the  present, 
seek  his  safety  in  Scotland,  but  wishes  their  heroic 
undertaking  from  his  heart  the  best  success.  Upon 
this  they  surrender  themselves  to  the  King  under  an 
agreement  which  is  not  kept  and  they  perish. 

So  far,  then,  from  the  character  being  the  work  of 
rational  choice  and  reflection,  the  intellect  has  nothing 
more  to  do  with  its  conduct  than  to  hold  up  motives 
before  the  will.  But  then  it  must,  as  mere  onlooker  and 
witness,  observe  how  from  its  effect  on  the  given  char¬ 
acter  the  course  of  life  shapes  itself,  all  the  processes  of 
which  when  correctly  considered  occur  with  the  same 
necessity  as  the  movements  of  a  clock-work,  on  which 
point  I  refer  my  readers  to  my  prize  essay  on  (<  Freedom 
of  the  Will.®  The  illusion  of  a  complete  freedom  of  the 
Will,  which  nevertheless  obtains  here,  with  every  single 
action,  I  have  there  reduced  to  its  true  significance  and 
its  origin,  and  thereby  indicated  the  active  cause  of  it, 
to  which  I  will  only  here  add  the  final  cause  in  the  fol¬ 
lowing  teleological  explanation  of  the  above  natural  illu¬ 
sion.  The  freedom  and  originality  which  in  truth  alone 
accrue  to  the  intelligible  character  of  a  man,  the  mere 
apprehension  of  which  by  the  intellect  is  his  course  of 
life  appear  to  attach  to  every  particular  action,  and  so 
the  original  work  is  for  the  empirical  consciousness 
apparently  repeated  anew  in  every  particular  action.  Our 
course  of  life  receives  thereby  the  greatest  possible  moral 
since  all  the  bad  sides  of  our  character  become 
in  this  way  first  really  perceptible  to  us.  Conscience, 
namely,  accompanies  every  action  with  the  commentary, 
<(  thou  mightest  act  differently,  ®  although  its  real  mean¬ 
ing  is,  (<thou  mightest  be  another  man.®  Now  since,  on 
the  one  hand,  by  the  unchangeability  of  character,  on 
the  other  by  the  strict  necessity  whereby  all  the  circum¬ 
stances  in  which  he  is  successively  placed  occur,  the 
course  of  life  of  each  is  precisely  defined  from  A  to  Z; 
but  notwithstanding  one  life  will  in  all  its  conditions, 
subjective  as  well  as  objective,  turn  out  incomparably 
happier,  nobler,  and  worthier  than  the  other.  This  leads, 
if  one  does  not  wish  to  eliminate  all  justice,  to  the 


ON  ETHICS 


299 


assumption  axiomatic  in  Brahminism  and  Buddhism,  that 
no  less  the  subjective  conditions  with  which,  as  the 
objective  condition  under  which  each  one  is  born,  are 
the  moral  consequences  of  a  previous  existence. 

Macchiavelli,  who  does  not  seem  by  any  means  to  have 
concerned  himself  with  philosophical  speculations,  is  by 
virtue  of  a  penetrating  acuteness  of  his  so  unique  intellect 
led  to  the  following  truly  deep-thinking  utterance  which 
presupposes  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  entire  necessity 
by  which,  with  given  characters  and  motives,  all  actions 
take  place.  He  begins  the  prologue  (<  Clitia ®  with  it: 
<(  Se  nel  mondo  tornassino  i  medesimi  uomini,  come  tornano 
i  medesimi  casi,  non  passarebbono  mai  cento  anni,  che  noi 
non  oi  trovassimo  un  altra  volta  insieme,  a  fare  le  mede- 
sime  cose,  che  hora. ®  ( (<  If  the  same  men  reappeared  in 

the  world  as  the  same  events  reappear,  a  hundred  years 
would  never  pass  without  our  finding  ourselves  again 
together,  doing  the  same  things  as  we  are  doing  now. ® ) 
A  reminiscence,  however,  of  what  Augustine  says  ( <(  De 
Civitate  Dei,®  libr.  xii.  c.  13)  seems  to  have  led  him  on 
to  this. 

The  Fate  (the  elp.app.ivrj)  of  the  ancients  is  nothing  else 
than  the  assurance  brought  to  consciousness,  that  all  that 
happens  is  firmly  bound  by  a  causal  chain,  and  therefore 
happens  with  strict  necessity,  and  that  accordingly  the 
future  is  already  perfectly  fixed,  is  determined  certainly 
and  exactly,  and  that  as  little  can  be  changed  in  it  as  in 
the  past.  It  is  only  the  foreknowledge  of  it  that  can  be 
looked  upon  as  fabulous  in  the  fatalistic  myths  of  the 
ancients,  if  we  eliminate  the  possibility  of  clairvoyance 
and  second  sight.  Instead  of  trying  to  set  aside  the  fun¬ 
damental  verity  of  fatalism  by  stupid  talk  and  empty  eva¬ 
sions,  one  should  rather  try  to  recognize  and  to  understand 
it  clearly,  for  it  is  a  demonstrable  truth  which  furnishes 
us  with  an  important  datum  for  the  understanding  of  our 
so  enigmatical  existence. 

Predestination  and  fatalism  are  not  in  the  main  dis¬ 
tinct,  but  only  in  that  the  given  character  and  the  deter¬ 
mination  of  human  action  which  comes  from  without, 
proceed,  the  former  from  a  knowing,  the  latter  from  a 
knowingless  being.  In  the  result  they  are  the  same :  that 


300 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


happens  which  must  happen.  The  conception  of  a  moral 
freedom  is,  on  the  contrary,  inseparable  from  that  of 
origination.  For  that  a  being  is  the  work  of  another, 
but  in  its  willing  and  acting  is  free  notwithstanding,  may 
be  said  with  words,  but  not  comprehended  in  thought. 
He,  namely,  who  called  it  into  being  from  nothing  has 
thereby  also  created  and  determined  its  nature,  that  is, 
all  its  qualities.  For  one  can  never  create  without  creat¬ 
ing  something  —  that  is,  a  being  precisely  determined 
throughout,  and  in  all  its  qualities.  But  from  these  quali¬ 
ties  which  are  thereby  determined  flow  afterward  with 
necessity  its  entire  manifestations  and  defects,  inasmuch 
as  these  are  simply  the  same  qualities  brought  into  play, 
which  only  required  a  stimulation  from  without  in  order 
to  manifest  themselves.  As  man  is  so  must  he  act,  and 
thus  fault  and  merit  cleave  not  to  his  individual  acts,  but 
to  his  essence  and  being.  Hence  Theism  and  the  moral 
responsibility  of  man  are  incompatible,  because  responsi¬ 
bility  always  falls  back  upon  the  author  of  the  being  as 
the  place  where  it  has  its  centre  of  gravity.  It  has  been 
in  vain  attempted  to  throw  a  bridge  between  these  two 
incompatibilities  by  means  of  the  conception  of  the  moral 
freedom  of  man,  for  it  always  breaks  down  again.  The 
free  being  must  also  be  the  original  being.  If  our  will 
is  free  our  primary  nature  is  so  also,  and  conversely. 
Even  the  pre- Kantian  dogmatism  which  would  have  kept 
these  two  predicaments  asunder  was  compelled  to  assume 
two  freedoms  that,  namely,  of  a  first-world  cause  for 
Cosmology,  and  that  of  the  human  will  for  morals  and 
theology.  In  accordance  with  this  Kant  also  treats  the 
third  no  less  than  the  fourth  antimony  of  freedom. 

In  my  philosophy,  on  the  other  hand,  the  straightfor¬ 
ward  recognition  of  the  strict  necessitation  of  actions 
involves  the  doctrine  that,  even  in  consciousless  beings, 
that  which  manifests  itself  is  Will,  otherwise  the  action 
of  this  obvious  necessitation  would  be  placed  in  opposi¬ 
tion  to  willing,  if,  namely,  there  were  really  such  a  free¬ 
dom  of  individual  action,  and  this  were  not  rather  as 
strictly  necessitated  as  any  other  effect.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  same  doctrine  of  the  necessitation  of  the  act 
of  Will  renders  it  necessary  that  the  existence  and 


ON  ETHICS 


301 


nature  of  man  be  itself  the  work  of  his  freedom  —  that  is, 
of  his  Will  —  and  that  the  latter,  therefore,  has  aseity. 
On  the  opposite  assumption,  all  responsibility  would,  as 
already  shown,  be  done  away  with;  and  the  moral,  like 
the  physical,  world  would  be  a  mere  machine,  which  its 
outside  artificer  made  to  work  for  his  amusement.  Truths 
thus  all  hang  together,  require  each  other,  complete  each 
other,  while  error  strikes  itself  against  every  corner. 

Of  what  kind  the  influence  is  which  moral  teaching 
can  have  on  conduct,  and  what  are  its  limits,  I  have 
sufficiently  investigated  in  my  treatise  on  the  foundation 
of  Morality.  Essentially  analogous  to  this  is  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  example,  which  is  nevertheless  more  powerful 
than  that  of  teaching,  and  therefore  deserves  a  short 
analysis. 

Example  acts  directly,  either  hindering  or  promoting. 
The  first,  when  it  determines  the  man  to  leave  undone 
what  he  would  willingly  do.  He  sees,  namely,  that 
others  do  not  do  it,  from  which  he  infers  in  general  that 
it  is  not  advisable,  in  other  words,  that  it  must  bring 
danger  to  his  person,  or  his  property,  or  his  honor;  to 
this  he  holds,  and  gladly  sees  himself  relieved  from  inde¬ 
pendent  investigation.  Or  he  sees  that  another  who  has 
done  it  has  suffered  evil  consequences  from  it.  This  is 
the  terrifying  example.  Example  acts  advantageously  in 
two  ways :  either  in  moving  men  to  do  what  they  would 
gladly  leave  undone  by  showing  them  that  its  omission 
would  bring  them  into  some  danger  or  injure  them  in 
the  opinion  of  others;  or  it  acts  so  as  to  encourage  them 
to  do  what  they  would  willingly  do,  but  hitherto  from 
fear  of  danger  or  disgrace  have  left  undone;  this  is  the 
seductive  example.  Lastly,  example  may  bring  to  a  man’s 
notice  something  which  would  otherwise  not  have  occurred 
to  him.  In  this  case  it  obviously  acts  directly  only  on 
the  intellect;  the  effect  on  the  Will  is  secondary,  and  is, 
when  it  occurs,  brought  about  by  an  original  act  of  judg¬ 
ment  or  by  confidence  in  him  who  sets  the  example. 
The  entire  very  powerful  effect  of  example  rests  on  the 
fact  that  the  man  as  a  rule  has  too  little  faculty  of  judg¬ 
ment,  often,  also,  too  little  knowledge  to  explore  his  way 
himself,  and  hence  he  is  glad  to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of 


302 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


others.  Every  one  will,  therefore,  be  the  more  open  to 
the  influence  of  example  the  more  he  lacks  the  above 
two  qualifications.  The  guiding  star  of  most  men  is,  how¬ 
ever,  the  example  of  others,  and  their  whole  conduct  in 
great  things  as  in  small,  is  reducible  to  mere  imitation: 
they  don’t  do  the  least  thing  on  their  own  judgment.*  The 
cause  of  this  is  their  horror  of  every  kind  of  reflection,  and 
their  well-grounded  mistrust  of  their  own  judgment.  At 
the  same  time  this  bears  witness  to  the  surprisingly  strong 
imitative  tendency  of  man,  as  also  to  his  relationship  to  the 
ape.  But  the  mode  in  which  the  example  acts  is  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  character  of  each ;  hence  the  same  example 
can  act  upon  one  seductively  and  on  the  other  repellently. 
Certain  social  mispractices  which,  not  previously  exist¬ 
ent,  gradually  force  their  way,  readily  give  us  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  observing  this.  On  first  noticing  something  of 
the  kind,  one  thinks,  ((Ah,  how  can  he  do  it!  How  ego¬ 
istic,  how  inconsiderate!  I  will  certainly  take  care  that 
I  will  never  do  any  such  thing.  ®  But  twenty  others  will 
think,  (<Aha!  he  does  that,  I  may  do  it  also.® 

In  a  moral  respect,  example,  like  teaching,  though  it 
indeed  promotes  a  civil  or  legal  improvement,  does  not, 
nevertheless,  further  the  inner,  which  is  properly  the 
moral,  improvement.  For  it  only  acts  as  a  personal  mo¬ 
tive,  and  consequently  under  the  presupposition  of  recep¬ 
tivity  for  this  class  of  motive.  But  it  is  precisely  whether 
a  character  is  more  receptive  for  this  or  that  class  of 
motive  which  is  decisive  for  its  proper  and  true,  but 
nevertheless  always  innate,  morality.  Example  acts  in 
general  advantageously  for  the  bringing  into  prominence 
of  good  and  bad  characteristics,  but  it  does  not  create 
them,  and  hence  Seneca’s  utterance,  <(  velle  non  discitur* 
holds  good  here  also.  That  the  innateness  of  all  genuine 
moral  qualities,  of  the  good  as  of  the  bad,  suits  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  Metempsychosis,  of  the  Brahminists  and  Bud¬ 
dhists,  according  to  which,  (<  The  good  and  the  bad 
actions  of  a  man  follow  him  from  one  existence  to  an¬ 
other  like  his  shadow,®  better  than  Judaism,  which  rather 
requires  that  man  should  come  into  the  world  as  a  moral 

*  Imitation  and  habit  are  the  impelling  motives  of  most  of  the  actions 
of  men. 


ON  ETHICS 


3°3 


zero  in  order  by  virtue  of  an  unthinkable  liberi  arbitri 
indiffer entice,  that  is,  as  a  consequence  of  rational  reflec¬ 
tion,  to  decide  whether  he  wills  to  be  an  angel  or  a 
devil,  or  whatever  else  may  lie  between  them, —  this  I 
know  well  enough,  but  do  not  trouble  myself  about  it, 
for  my  standard  is  the  truth.  I  am  no  professor  of  phi¬ 
losophy,  and,  therefore,  do  not  recognize  my  calling  to 
consist  in,  before  all  -  other  things,  making  sure  the  funda¬ 
mental  ideas  of  Judaism  even  if  these  should  block  the 
way  forever  to  all  and  every  philosophical  cognition. 
Liberum  arbitrium  indiffer  entice,  under  the  name  of 
(<  Moral  Freedom,  ®  is  a  very  favorite  toy  for  the  profess¬ 
ors  of  philosophy  which  we  must  leave  to  them  —  the 
deep-thinking,  the  honest,  and  the  upright! 


ON  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  INDESTRUCTI¬ 
BILITY  OF  OUR  TRUE  NATURE 
BY  DEATH. 

Although  I  have  treated  this  subject  thoroughly  and 
in  its  connection  in  my  chief  work,  I  nevertheless  believe 
that  a  small  selection  of  separate  reflections  upon  it,  which 
always  throw  back  some  light  on  an  exposition,  will  not 
be  without  value  for  many. 

One  must  read  Jean  Paul’s  (<  Selina®  in  order  to  see  how 
an  eminently  great  mind  becomes  the  victim  of  the  absurd¬ 
ities  of  a  false  conception,  which  he  will  not  give  up  be¬ 
cause  he  has  set  his  heart  upon  it,  but  is  all  the  same 
perpetually  disturbed  by  absurdities  which  he  cannot  di¬ 
gest.  It  is  the  conception  of  the  individual  continuance 
of  our  entire  personal  consciousness  after  death.  Pre¬ 
cisely  the  fighting  and  struggling  of  Jean  Paul  proves 
that  such  concepts  compounded  of  the  false  and  true  are 
not,  as  is  alleged,  wholesome  errors,  but  are  rather  decid¬ 
edly  noxious.  For  not  only  is  the  true  knowledge  —  resting 
on  the  distinction  between  appearance  and  the  thing  in 
itself  —  of  the  indestructibility  of  our  proper  nature  as 
untouched  by  time,  causality,  and  change,  made  impossi¬ 
ble  by  the  false  opposition  of  soul  and  body,  as  also  by 
the  raising  of  the  whole  personality  to  a  thing  in  itself 
which  must  eternally  exist;  but  this  false  conception  can¬ 
not  even  be  firmly  held  as  the  representative  of  the  truth, 
since  the  reason  ever  anew  rises  indignant  against  the 
absurdity  lying  in  it,  and  then  has  to  give  up  therewith 
the  truth  which  is  amalgamated  with  it.  For  in  the  long 
run  truth  can  only  subsist  in  its  purity;  mixed  up  with 
errors  it  participates  in  their  fallibility  as  the  granite 
crumbles  when  its  felspar  is  decayed,  although  quartz  and 
mica  are  not  subject  to  such  decay.  It  goes  badly  there¬ 
fore  with  surrogates  of  the  truth. 

When  in  daily  intercouse  it  is  asked  by  one  of  those 
many  people  who  wish  to  know  everything,  but  do  not 
(304) 


INDESTRUCTIBILITY  OF  NATURE  BY  DEATH  305 


want  to  learn  anything,  as  to  continued  existence  after 
death,  the  most  suitable  and  indeed,  in  the  first  instance, 
the  most  correct  answer  is :  <(  After  your  death  you  will  be 
what  your  were  before  your  birth.®  For  it  implies  the 
wrong-headedness  of  the  demand  that  a  species  of  exist¬ 
ence  which  has  a  beginning  shall  be  without  end,  besides 
containing  the  implication  that  there  may  be  two  kinds  of 
being  and  two  kinds  of  nothing  according  with  it.  Simi¬ 
larly  one  might  answer,  <(  Whatever  you  will  be  after  your 
death,  even  if  it  be  nothing,  will  be  just  as  natural  and 
suitable  to  you  as  your  individual  organic  existence  is  now, 
thus  you  will  have  at  most  to  fear  the  moment  of  trans¬ 
ition.  Yes,  since  a  mature  consideration  of  the  matter 
affords  the  result,  that  complete  non-existence  would  be 
preferable  to  an  existence  such  as  ours.  Thus  the  thought 
of  the  cessation  of  our  existence,  or  of  a  time  when  we 
shall  no  longer  be,  ought,  as  far  as  reason  goes,  to  trouble 
us  as  little  as  the  thought  of  the  time  when  we  were  not. 
But  since  the  existence  is  essentially  a  personal  one  the 
end  of  the  personality  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  loss.® 
To  him,  on  the  contrary,  who  on  the  objective  and  em¬ 
pirical  path  had  pursued  the  plausible  clue  of  materialism, 
and  now  full  of  alarm  at  complete  destruction  by  death 
which  confronts  him  therein,  turns  to  us,  we  should  per¬ 
haps  procure  for  him  satisfaction  in  the  shortest  way  and 
one  most  suited  to  his  empirical  mode  of  thought,  if  we 
demonstrated  to  him  the  distinction  between  matter  and  the 
metaphysical  force  which  is  always  temporarily  taking 
possession  of  it;  as,  for  example,  in  birds,  where  the  homo¬ 
geneous  formless  fluidity  as  soon  as  it  attains  the  requisite 
temperature,  assumes  the  complicated  and  exactly  deter¬ 
mined  shape  of  the  genus  and  species  of  its  bird.  This  is 
indeed,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  kind  of  generatio  cequivoca , 
and  it  is  exceedingly  probable  that  the  hierarchical  series 
of  animal  forms  arose  from  the  fact  that  once  in  primitive 
times  and  in  a  happy  hour  it  overleaped  the  type  of  animal 
to  which  the  egg  belonged,  to  a  higher  one.  At  all  events 
something  distinct  from  matter  appears  here  most  promi¬ 
nently,  especially  in  that  by  the  least  unfavorable  circum¬ 
stance  it  comes  to  nothing.  In  this  way  it  becomes  ex¬ 
plicable  that  after  an  operation  that  has  been  completed 


20 


3  o6 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


or  subsequently  prevented  it  can  deviate  from  it  without 
injury,  a  fact  which  points  to  a  totally  different  permanence 
than  that  of  the  persistence  of  matter  in  time. 

If  we  conceive  of  a  being-  which  knew,  understood,  and 
saw  everything,  the  question  whether  we  endure  after 
death  would  probably  have  no  meaning  for  such  a  one, 
since  beyond  our  present  temporal  individual  existence 
enduring  and  ceasing  would  have  no  significance,  and  would 
be  indistinguishable  conceptions.  And  accordingly  neither 
the  concept  of  destruction  nor  that  of  continuance,  would 
have  any  application,  since  these  are  borrowed  from  time, 
which  is  merely  the  form  of  the  phenomenon.  In  the 
meantime  we  can  only  think  of  the  indestructibility  of 
this  core  of  our  phenomenon  as  a  continuance  of  it,  and 
indeed,  properly  speaking,  only  according  to  the  schema  of 
matter  which  under  all  changes  of  its  form  maintains  itself 
in  time.  If  we  deny  it  this  continuance  we  regard  our 
temporal  end  as  an  annihilation  according  to  the  schema 
of  form  which  vanishes  when  the  matter  in  which  it  inheres 
is  taken  away  from  it.  Both  are  nevertheless  / lerdfiaais  et? 
aXXo  y(vo<z,  that  is,  a  transference  of  the  forms  of  the  phe¬ 
nomenon  to  the  thing  in  itself.  But  of  an  indestructibility 
which  would  be  no  continuance  we  can  hardly  form  even 
an  abstract  idea,  since  all  perception  by  which  we  might 
confirm  it  fails  us. 

In  truth  however  the  constant  arising  of  new  beings  and 
the  perishing  of  those  already  existent  is  to  be  regarded 
as  an  illusion  produced  by  the  apparatus  of  two  polished 
lenses  (brain-functions),  by  which  alone  we  can  see  anything. 
They  are  called  space  and  time,  and  in  their  reciprocal 
interpenetration  —  causality.  For  all  that  we  perceive  under 
these  conditions  is  mere  phenomenon;  but  we  do  not 
know  the  things  as  they  may  be  in  themselves,  that  is  in¬ 
dependently  of  our  perception.  This  is  properly  the  kernel 
of  the  Kantian  philosophy  which,  together  with  its  con¬ 
tent,  one  cannot  too  often  call  to  mind  in  a  period  when 
venal  charlatanry  has  by  its  stupefying  process  driven 
philosophy  from  Germany  with  the  willing  assistance  of 
people  for  whom  truth  and  intelligence  are  the  most  in¬ 
different  things  in  the  world,  and  wage  and  salary  the 
most  important. 


INDESTRUCTIBILITY  OF  NATURE  BY  DEATH  307 


How  can  we  suppose  on  beholding  the  death  of  a  human 
being  that  a  thing-in-itself  here  comes  to  nothing?  That 
a  phenomenon  in  time,  that  form  of  all  phenomena,  finds 
its  end  without  the  thing-in-itself  being  thereby  affected 
is  an  immediate  intuitive  cognition  of  every  man;  hence 
men  have  endeavored  to  give  utterance  to  it  at  all  times, 
in  the  most  diverse  forms  and  expressions,  but  these  are 
all  derived  from  the  phenomenon  in  its  special  sense  and 
only  have  reference  thereto.  Everyone  feels  that  he  is 
something  different  from  a  being  who  has  once  been 
created  from  nothing  by  another  being.  In  this  way  the 
assurance  arises  within  him  that  although  death  can  make 
an  end  of  his  life  it  cannot  make  an  end  of  his  existence. 
Man  is  something  else  than  an  animated  nothing;  and 
the  animal,  also.  He  who  thinks  his  existence  is  limited 
to  his  present  life  regards  himself  as  an  animated  nothing. 
For  thirty  years  ago  he  was  nothing  and  thirty  years 
hence  he  will  be  again  nothing. 

The  more  clearly  one  is  conscious  of  the  transience, 
nothingness  and  dreamlike  nature  of  all  things,  by  so 
much  the  more  clearly  is  one  conscious  also  of  the  eternity 
of  one’s  own  inner  nature.  For  only  in  opposition  to 
this  is  the  foregoing  structure  of  things  known,  as  the 
rapid  motion  of  the  ship  one  is  on,  is  only  perceived  when 
one  looks  toward  the  fixed  shore  and  not  when  one  looks 
at  the  ship  itself. 

The  present  has  two  halves,  an  objective  and  a  sub¬ 
jective.  The  objective  alone  has  the  perception  of  time 
for  its  form,  and  hence  rolls  ceaselessly  forward.  From 
this  arises  our  vivid  recollection  of  what  is  very  long  past, 
and  the  consciousness  of  our  imperishability,  in  spite  of 
our  knowledge  of  the  transience  of  our  existence. 

Everyone  thinks  that  his  innermost  core  is  something 
that  the  present  contains  and  carries  about  with  it.  When¬ 
ever  we  may  happen  to  live  we  always  stand  with  our 
consciousness  in  the  centre  of  time,  never  at  its  termin¬ 
ations;  and  we  might  assume  from  this  that  everyone 
bore  within  himself  the  immovable  centre  of  infinite  time. 
This  is,  moreover,  at  bottom  what  gives  him  the  confidence 
with  which  he  lives  on  without  continual  fear  of  death. 


3°8 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


But  whoever  by  virtue  of  the  strength  of  his  memory 
and  imagination  can  recall  the  most  vividly  the  long  past 
of  his  own  life,  will  become  more  clearly  conscious  than 
others  of  the  identity  of  the  now  in  all  time.  Perhaps, 
indeed,  this  proposition  is  more  correct  taken  conversely. 
But  at  all  events  such  a  clearer  consciousness  of  the  identity 
of  all  now  is  an  essential  requirement  of  the  philosophic 
mind.  By  means  of  it  we  apprehend  that  which  is  most 
fleeting  —  the  now — as  the  only  persistent.  He  who  is 
in  this  intuitive  way  aware  that  the  present  moment,  which 
is  the  only  form  of  all  reality  in  the  narrowest  sense, 
has  its  source  in  us,  and  springs,  that  is,  from  within  and 
not  from  without,  cannot  doubt  of  the  indestructibility  of 
his  own  nature.  He  will  rather  understand  that  by  his 
death  the  objective  world,  indeed,  with  the  medium  of  its 
presentment,  the  intellect,  perishes  for  him,  but  that  this 
does  not  touch  his  existence,  for  there  was  as  much 
reality  within  as  without.  He  will  say  with  complete 
understanding:  eifu  Tt av  to  yeyovds,  Kai  Sv,  Kat  iffofievov 

(<(  Stob.  Floril.  Tit.”  44,  42;  vol.  ii.  p.  201). 

He  who  does  not  admit  this  to  be  true  must  maintain 
the  opposite,  and  say:  (<  Time  is  something  purely  objec¬ 
tive  and  real,  which  exists  quite  independently  of  me. 
I  am  only  accidentally  thrown  into  it,  have  only  become 
participant  in  a  small  portion  of  it,  whereby  I  have 
attained  to  a  transient  reality  like  thousands  of  others 
before  me  who  are  now  no  more,  and  I  shall  also  very 
soon  be  nothing.  Time,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  Real. 
It  goes  further  without  me.” 

In  accordance  with  all  this,  life  may  certainly  be 
regarded  as  a  dream  and  death  as  an  awakening.  But 
then  the  personality,  the  individual,  belongs  to  the  dream¬ 
ing  and  not  to  the  waking  consciousness,  for  which  reason 
death  presents  itself  to  the  former  as  annihilation.  It  is 
still,  at  all  events  from  this  standpoint,  not  to  be  regarded 
as  the  transition  to  a  state  entirely  new  and  strange  to 
us,  but  rather  only  as  the  return  to  our  original  one,  of 
which  life  was  only  a  short  episode. 

If  in  the  meantime  a  philosopher  should,  perhaps,  think 
that  he  would  find  in  dying  a  consolation  peculiar  to  him 
alone,  or  at  least  a  diversion,  and  that  then  a  problem 


INDESTRUCTIBILITY  OF  NATURE  BY  DEATH  309 


would  be  resolved  for  him  which  had  so  frequently  occupied 
him,  we  can  only  say  that  it  will  probably  fare  with  him 
as  with  one,  who  as  he  is  about  to  find  what  he  is  seek¬ 
ing,  has  his  lantern  blown  out. 

For  in  death  the  consciousness  assuredly  perishes,  but 
not  by  any  means  that  which  till  then  had  produced  it. 
The  consciousness,  namely,  rests  immediately  on  the  intel¬ 
lect,  but  the  latter  on  the  physiological  process.  For  it 
is  obviously  the  function  of  the  brain,  and  hence  condi¬ 
tioned  by  the  co-operation  of  the  nerve  and  cellular  sys¬ 
tem,  though  more  directly  by  the  brain,  which  is  nourished, 
animated,  and  continuously  agitated  by  the  heart.  It  is 
by  the  artistic  and  mysterious  construction  of  the  brain 
as  described  by  anatomy,  but  which  physiology  does  not 
understand,  that  the  phenomenon  of  the  objective  world 
and  the  trend  of  our  thoughts  is  brought  about.  An 
individual  consciousness,  that  is,  a  consciousness  as  such, 
cannot  be  conceived  in  an  incorporeal  being,  since  knowl¬ 
edge,  the  condition  of  every  consciousness,  is  necessarily 
brain- function  —  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  intellect 
objectively  manifests  itself  as  brain.  Now  as  intellect  ap¬ 
pears  physiologically  —  that  is,  in  empirical  reality  or  in 
the  phenomenon  —  as  a  secondary,  as  a  result  of  the  proc¬ 
ess  of  life,  so  it  is  also  psychologically  secondary  in  oppo¬ 
sition  to  the  Will  which  is  alone  the  primary  and  ever  the 
original.  The  organism  itself  is  really  only  the  Will  dis¬ 
playing  itself  perceptually  and  objectively  in  the  brain, 
and  therefore  in  its  forms  of  space  and  time,  as  I  have 
often  explained,  especially  in  <(  Will  in  Nature,®  and  in 
my  chief  work  (vol.  ii.  chap  xx.).  Since,  then,  the  con¬ 
sciousness  is  not  immediately  dependent  upon  the  Will, 
but  this  is  conditioned  by  the  intellect,  and  this  again  by 
the  organism,  there  remains  no  doubt  that  consciousness 
is  extinguished  by  death,  as  also  by  sleep  and  swoons.* 
But  let  us  be  consoled !  For  what  kind  of  a  consciousness 
is  this  ?  A  cerebral,  an  animal  consciousness  —  one  a  little 
more  highly  developed  than  that  of  the  beasts,  in  so  far 
as  we  have  it  as  regards  all  essentials  in  common  with 

*  It  would  certainly  be  very  pleasant  if  the  intellect  did  not  perish 
with  death:  one  would  then  bring  the  Greek  which  one  had  learned  in 
this  world  all  ready  with  one  into  the  other, 


3io 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


the  whole  series  of  animals  although  it  attains  its  summit 
in  us.  It  is  the  same,  as  I  have  sufficiently  demonstrated, 
with  respect  to  its  purpose  and  origin  —  a  mere  of 

nature,  a  means  of  knowing  how  to  help  the  animal  na¬ 
ture  to  its  requirements.  The  state,  on  the  contrary, 
into  which  death  throws  us  back  is  our  original  state  — 
that  is,  it  is  the  state  peculiar  to  our  nature,  whose  orig¬ 
inal  force  displays  itself  in  the  production  and  mainte¬ 
nance  of  the  life  that  is  now  ceasing.  It  is,  in  short,  the 
state  of  the  thing-in-itself  in  opposition  to  the  phenome¬ 
non.  Now  in  this  primal  state  such  an  assistance  as  the 
cerebral,  a  cognition  so  extremely  mediate,  and  for  this 
reason  merely  supplying  phenomena,  is  without  doubt  en¬ 
tirely  superfluous;  hence  we  lose  it.  Its  disappearance  is 
the  same  as  the  cessation  of  the  phenomenal  world  for 
us,  of  which  it  was  the  mere  medium,  and  can  serve  for 
nothing  else.  If  in  this  our  original  state  the  retention 
of  the  animal  consciousness  were  even  offered  us,  we 
should  reject  it  as  the  lame  man  who  is  cured  does  the 
crutch.  He  therefore  who  bemoans  the  loss  in  question 
of  this  cerebral  consciousness,  which  is  merely  phenome¬ 
nal  and  adapted  to  the  phenomenal,  is  to  be  compared  to 
the  converted  Greenlanders  who  did  not  wish  for  heaven 
when  they  heard  that  there  were  no  seals  there. 

Moreover,  all  that  is  here  said  rests  on  the  assumption 
that  we  cannot  even  conceive  of  a  now-conscious  state  ex¬ 
cept  as  a  knowing  one,  which  therefore  bears  the  root-form 
of  all  knowledge  —  the  separation  of  subject  and  object, 
of  a  knowing  and  a  known.  But  we  have  to  consider  that 
this  entire  form  of  knowing  and  being  known  is  condi¬ 
tioned  merely  by  our  animal,  and  hence  very  secondary 
and  derived,  nature,  and  is  thus  in  no  way  the  original 
state  of  all  being  and  all  existence,  which  may  therefore 
be  quite  different,  and  yet  not  without  consciousness.  If 
then  our  own  present  nature,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to 
trace  it  to  its  core,  is  mere  will;  and  this  in  itself  is  a 
knowingless  thing;  when  through  death  we  sacrifice  the 
intellect,  we  are  only  thereby  transplanted  into  our  original 
consciousless  state,  which  is  therefore  not  simply  conscious- 
less,  but  rather  above  and  beyond  this  form  —  a  state  in 
which  the  antithesis  of  subject  and  object  disappears,  be- 


INDESTRUCTIBILITY  OF  NATURE  BY  DEATH  31 1 


cause  here  that  which  is  to  be  known  would  be  really  and 
immediately  one  with  the  knowing,  and  thus  the  funda¬ 
mental  condition  of  all  knowing  (which  is  precisely  this 
opposition)  would  be  wanting.  Herewith  may  be  com¬ 
pared  by  way  of  elucidation  (<  The  World  as  Will  and 
Presentment,®  vol.  ii,  p.  273  (3d  ed.  310.)  The  utterance 
of  Giordano  Bruno  (ed.  Wagner,  vol.  i,  p.  287):  <(  La  divina 

mente ,  e  la  unitiX  assoluta ,  senza  specie  alcuna  e  ella  medesimo 
lo  che  intende ,  e  lo  cti  l  inteso.  * 

Perhaps  every  one  is  now  and  then  aware  in  his  inner¬ 
most  heart  of  a  consciousness  that  would  be  suited  to  an 
entirely  different  kind  of  existence  than  this  so  unspeak¬ 
ably  beggarly,  timely,  individual  one,  occupied  as  it  is  alto¬ 
gether  with  misery ;  on  which  occasions  he  thinks  that  death 
might  lead  him  to  such  a  one. 

If  we  now  in  opposition  to  this  mode  of  contemplation 
which  is  directed  inward,  again  turn  our  attention  out¬ 
ward  and  apprehend  the  world  displaying  itself  objectively, 
death  will  then  certainly  appear  to  us  a  passage  into 
nothing:  But  birth  also  none  the  less  as  a  proceeding  out 
of  nothing.  The  one  like  the  other,  however,  cannot  be 
unconditionally  true  since  it  only  has  the  reality  of  the 
phenomenon.  That  in  some  sense  we  should  survive  death 
is  really  no  greater  miracle  than  that  of  generation  which 
we  daily  see  before  our  eyes.  What  dies  goes  hence,  where 
all  life  comes  from,  its  own  included.  In  this  sense  the 
Egyptians  called  Orchus  Amanthns,  which,  according  to 
Plutarch  (w  de.  Is.  and  Osir,®  c.  29),  signifies  6  Xafi/3dv(ov  nai 
Si8ou$,  <(  the  taker  and  giver,  ®  in  order  to  express  that 
it  is  the  same  source  into  which  everything  returns  and 
from  which  everything  proceeds.  From  this  point  of  view 
our  life  might  be  regarded  as  a  loan  received  from  death ; 
sleep  would  then  be  the  daily  interest  on  this  loan.  Death 
announces  itself  without  any  concealment  as  the  end  of  the 
individual,  but  in  this  individual  lies  the  germ  of  a  new 
being.  Hence  nothing  of  all  that  dies,  dies  forever.  But 
neither  does  anything  that  is  born  receive  a  fundamentally 
new  existence.  The  dying  perishes  but  a  germ  remains 
over  from  which  proceeds  a  new  being  which  now  enters 
into  existence  without  knowing  whence  it  comes  and  why 


312 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


it  is  exactly  such  as  it  is.  This  is  the  mystery  of  the  Pal¬ 
ingenesis  for  the  explanation  of  which  the  42c!  chapter  of 
the  2d  volume  of  my  chief  work  may  be  consulted.  It 
appears  from  this  that  all  beings  at  this  moment  living  con¬ 
tain  the  true  germ  of  all  that  will  live  in  the  future,  which 
are  thus  to  a  certain  extent  already  there.  Similarly  every 
animal  existing  in  its  full  perfection  seems  to  cry  out  to  us : 

Why  dost  thou  complain  of  the  perishability  of  the  living  ? 
How  could  I  exist  if  all  those  of  my  species  which  were 
before  me  had  not  died  ?  ®  However  much,  therefore,  the 
pieces  and  the  masks  on  the  stage  of  the  world  change,  the 
Actors  remain  the  same  in  all.  We  sit  together  and  talk 
and  excite  each  other  and  eyes  gleam  and  voices  become 
louder;  exactly  so  others  have  sat  thousands  of  years  ago; 
it  was  the  same,  and  they  were  the  same.  Just  so  will  it 
be  thousands  of  years  hence.  The  arrangement  owing  to 
which  we  are  not  aware  of  this,  is  time. 

One  might  very  well  distinguish  Metempsychosis  as  the 
passage  of  the  entire  so-called  soul  into  another  body  —  and 
Palingenesis  as  the  decomposition  and  reformation  of  this 
individual,  inasmuch  as  his  Will  persists,  and  assuming  the 
shape  of  a  new  being,  receives  a  new  intellect.  Thus  the 
individual  decomposes  like  a  neutral  salt,  the  basis  of  which 
combines  itself  with  another  acid  into  a  new  salt.  The 
difference  between  Metempsychosis  and  Palingenesis  which 
Servius  the  commentator  of  Virgil  assumes,  and  which  is 
shortly  indicated  in  (<  Wernsdorffii  dissertat  de  Metempsy- 
chosi,”  p.  48,  is  obviously  fallacious  and  nugatory. 

From  Spencer  Hardy’s  (<  Manual  of  Buddhism  ®  ( pp. 
394-96  with  which  may  be  compared  pp.  429,  440,  445, 
in  the  same  book),  also  from  Sangermano’s  <(  Burmese 
Empire  *  as  well  as  from  the  <(  Asiatic  Researches, w  vol. 
vi.,  p.  179,  and  vol.  ix.,  p.  256,  it  appears  that  in  Budd¬ 
hism  an  exoteric  and  esoteric  doctrine  obtains  regarding 
continuance  after  death.  The  former  is  Metempsychosis 
as  in  Brahminism  but  the  latter  is  a  Palingenesis  much 
more  difficult  of  comprehension,  which  is  very  much  in 
agreement  with  my  doctrine  of  the  Metaphysical  exist¬ 
ence  of  the  Will,  of  the  merely  physical  structure  of  the 
intellect,  and  the  perishability  which  accords  with  it. 
naXiyy^vema  occurs  in  the  Old  Testament. 


INDESTRUCTIBILITY  OF  NATURE  BY  DEATH  313 


But  if,  in  order  to  penetrate  deeper  into  the  mystery 
of  Palingenesis  we  seek  aid  from  the  43d  chapter  of  the 
2d  vol.  of  my  chief  work,  the  matter,  more  closely  con¬ 
sidered,  will  apuear  to  be  that  throughout  all  time  the 
male  sex  has  been  the  bearer  of  the  Will,  the  female  of 
the  Intellect  of  the  human  race,  whereby  it  receives  per¬ 
petual  subsistence.  Every  one,  therefore,  has  a  paternal 
and  a  maternal  element,  and  as  these  are  united  in  gen¬ 
eration  they  are  also  separated  in  death,  which  is  thus 
the  end  of  the  individual.  This  individual  it  is  whose 
death  we  so  much  deplore  with  the  feeling  that  it  is  really 
lost,  since  it  was  a  mere  combination  which  irrevocably 
ceases.  But  we  must  not  forget  in  all  this,  that  the  trans- 
missability  of  the  Intellect  of  the  mother  is  not  so  decided 
and  unconditioned  as  that  of  the  Will  of  the  father,  on 
account  of  the  secondary  and  merely  physical  nature  of 
the  intellect  and  its  complete  dependence  on  the  organ¬ 
ism,  not  only  in  respect  of  the  brain  but  also  otherwise, 
as  has  been  shown  by  me  in  the  chapter  in  question.  I 
may  mention  here,  by  the  way,  that  I  so  far  agree  with 
Plato  in  that  he  also  distinguishes  in  his  so-called  soul,  a 
mortal  and  an  immortal  part.  But  he  comes  into  diamet¬ 
rical  opposition  with  me  and  with  the  truth,  in  that  he, 
after  the  manner  of  all  philosophers  who  have  preceded 
me,  regards  the  intellect  as  the  immortal,  and  the  Will, 
that  is,  the  seat  of  the  appetites  and  passions,  as  the 
mortal  part ;  as  may  be  seen  from  the  (<  Timaeus  *  ( pp. 
386,  387,  395,  ed.  Bip.).  Aristotle  has  the  same  idea.  * 

But  though  the  physical  may  strangely  and  wonderfully 
rule  things  by  procreation  and  death,  together  with  the 
visible  combination  of  individuals  out  of  Will  and  Intellect 
and  their  subsequent  dissolution,  yet  the  metaphysical 
principle  lying  at  its  basis  is  of  so  entirely  heterogeneous 
a  nature  that  it  is  not  affected  by  it,  so  on  this  point  we 
may  be  consoled. 

One  can  accordingly  conceive  every  man  from  two  oppo- 

*  In  the  <(De  Anima”  (I.  4.  p.  408),  his  real  opinion  escapes 
accidentally  at  the  beginning  that  the  vov f  is  the  true  and  im¬ 
mortal  soul  —  which  he  confirms  with  fallacious  assertions.  Hatred 
and  love  belong  not  to  the  soul,  but  to  their  organ,  the  perishable 
part. 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


3H 

site  points  of  view :  from  the  one,  he  is  an  individual  be¬ 
ginning  and  ending  in  time,  fleeting  and  transitory,  ovcea? 
ovap  besides  being  heavily  burdened  with  failings  and 
pains.  From  the  other,  he  is  the  indestructible  original 
being  which  objecti vises  itself  in  everything  existent,  and 
may,  as  such,  say,  like  the  statue  of  Isis  at  Sais:  dpt 

Tzav  to  yeyovb'i^  nai  ov,  nai  iaopevov.  Such  a  being  might  indeed 
do  something  better  than  manifest  itself  in  a  world  like 
this.  For  this  is  the  finite  world  of  sorrow  and  of  death. 
What  is  in  it,  and  what  comes  out  of  it  must  end  and  die. 
But  what  is  not  of  it,  and  what  never  will  be  of  it, 
pierces  through  it,  all-powerful  like  a  flash  of  lightning, 
which  strikes  upward,  and  knows  neither  time  nor  death. 
To  unite  all  these  antitheses  is  properly  the  theme  of  my 
philosophy. 

Short  Concluding  Dialogue. 

Thrasymachos — To  be  brief,  what  am  I  after  my  death  ? 
be  clear  and  precise. 

Philalethes — Everything  and  nothing. 

Thrasymachos  —  There  we  have  it!  as  the  solution  of  a 
problem,  a  contradiction.  The  trick  is  played  out. 

Philalethes — To  answer  transcendent  questions  in  the 
language  created  for  immanent  knowledge  may  certainly 
lead  to  contradictions. 

Thrasymachos — What  do  you  call  transcendent  and  what 
immanent  knowledge  ?  These  expressions  are  indeed 
known  to  me  from  my  professor  but  only  as  predicates 
of  Almighty  God,  with  which  his  philosophy,  as  was  only 
suitable,  was  exclusively  concerned.  If,  namely,  he  remains 
in  the  world  he  is  immanent,  but  if  he  sits  anywhere 
outside  it  he  is  transcendent.  Only  look,  that  is  clear, 
that  is  comprehensible  !  One  knows  what  one  has  to  hold 
by.  But  your  old-fashioned  Kantian  artificial  language 
no  human  being  any  longer  understands.  The  time- 
consciousness  of  the  modern  world,  from  the  metropolis 
of  German  science — 

Philalethes  (aside)  —  German  philosophical  windbaggery. 

Thrasymachos  —  Through  a  whole  succession  of  great 
men,  especially  through  the  great  Schleiermacher  and  the 
giant  intellect  Hegel  has  been  brought  back  from  all  that, 


INDESTRUCTIBILITY  OF  NATURE  BY  DEATH  315 


or  rather,  has  been  brought  so  far  forward  that  it  has 
left  it  all  behind  and  knows  no  more  of  it.  So  what 
do  you  mean  by  it? 

Philalethes  —  Transcendent  knowledge  is  that  which 
proceeding  beyond  all  possibility  of  experience,  seeks  to 
determine  the  nature  of  things  as  they  are  in  themselves. 
Immanent  knowledge  on  the  other  hand,  is  that  which 
keeps  itself  within  the  bounds  of  the  possibility  of  experi¬ 
ence,  and  therefore  can  speak  of  phenomena.  You  as 
individual  end  at  your  death,  yet  the  individual  is  not  your 
true  and  ultimate  nature,  but  rather  merely  a  manifest¬ 
ation  of  it.  It  is  not  the  Thing-in-itself,  but  only  its 
phenomenon  which  displays  itself  in  the  form  of  time, 
and  accordingly  has  a  beginning  and  end.  Your  true 
nature  in  itself  knows  neither  time,  nor  beginning,  nor 
end,  nor  the  limits  of  a  given  individuality,  and  hence  it 
can  be  excluded  from  no  individuality,  but  is  there  in 
each  and  all.  In  the  first  sense  you  become  by  your  death 
nothing;  in  the  second  you  are  and  remain  all  things. 
Hence  I  said  that  you,  after  your  death,  would  be  every¬ 
thing  and  nothing.  Your  question  scarcely  admits  of  a 
more  correct  answer  in  so  short  a  compass  than  this  one, 
which,  however,  certainly  contains  a  contradiction;  because 
while  your  life  is  in  time,  your  immortality  is  in  eternity. 
This  may  be  termed  therefore  an  indestructibility  without 
continuance,  which  again  results  in  a  contradiction.  But 
so  it  is  when  the  transcendent  has  to  be  brought  into 
immanent  knowledge,  for  it  sustains  thereby  a  kind  of 
violence,  since  it  is  misused  for  that  to  which  it  was  not 
born. 

Thrasymachos  —  Do  you  hear,  without  the  continuance  of 
my  individuality,  I  would  not  give  a  single  heller  for  all 
your  immortality. 

Philalethes — But  perhaps  we  may  still  do  business  to¬ 
gether.  Granted  I  guaranteed  you  the  continuance  of  your 
individuality  but  made  it  a  condition  that  before  its  re¬ 
awakening  there  was  to  be  a  perfectly  consciousless  death- 
sleep  of  three  months  ? 

Thrasymachos  —  That  would  do. 

Philalethes — But  since  in  a  perfectly  consciousless  state 
we  have  no  measurement  of  time  it  is  quite  the  same  to  us 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


316 

whether  while  we  lay  in  that  death-sleep  three  months  or 
ten  thousand  years  had  passed.  For  we  must  accept  the 
one  thing  like  the  other  on  trust  and  faith,  on  awakening. 
It  must  therefore  be  indifferent  to  you  whether  your  indi¬ 
viduality  is  given  back  to  you  after  three  months  or  after 
ten  thousand  years. 

Thrasyniachos  —  In  the  last  resort  that  cannot  be  denied. 

Philalethes  —  But  now  if  after  the  lapse  of  the  ten  thous¬ 
and  years  you  were  forgotten  to  be  awakened,  I  believe  that 
when  after  so  short  an  existence  you  had  become  accus¬ 
tomed  to  so  long  a  non-existence  the  misfortune  would  not 
be  great.  But  certain  it  is;  that  you  could  know  nothing 
of  it.  And  you  would  be  quite  consoled  as  regards  the 
question  if  you  knew  that  the  secret  machinery  which  main¬ 
tains  your  present  phenomenon  in  motion  had  not  ceased 
one  moment  during  those  ten  thousand  years  to  produce  and 
set  in  motion  other  phenomena  of  the  same  kind. 

Thrasymachos — So?  And  in  this  way  you  think  to 
swindle  me  out  of  my  individuality  by  smooth  talk,  with¬ 
out  my  noticing  it  ?  I  am  not  to  be  taken  in  in  that  way. 
I  have  stipulated  for  the  continuance  of  my  individuality, 
and  no  machinery  and  phenomena  can  console  me  for  the 
loss  of  it.  It  lies  closest  to  my  heart,  and  I  will  not  part 
from  it. 

Philalethes  —  You  regard  your  individuality  then  as  so 
pleasant,  excellent,  perfect  and  incomparable  that  there 
could  be  nothing  preferable  to  it,  and  hence  you  would  not 
like  to  exchange  it  for  any  other,  with  which  it  might  be 
asserted  that  it  was  possible  to  live  better  and  more 
comfortably. 

Thrasymachos — But  surely  my  individuality,  whatever  it 
is,  is  myself, 

<(  Nothing  in  the  world  is  above  me, 

For  God  is  God  and  I  am  I.8 

I,  I,  I  desire  existence!  This  it  is  which  concerns  me  and 
not  an  existence  which  has  first  of  all  to  be  proved  to  me 
that  it  is  mine. 

Philalethes  —  But  consider  the  matter!  What  is  it  that 
cries,  (<  I,  I,  I  desire  existence,®  that  is,  not  you  alone,  but 
everything,  simply  everything,  that  has  a  trace  of  conscious- 


INDESTRUCTIBILITY  OF  NATURE  BY  DEATH  317 


ness.  Consequently  this  wish  in  you  is  precisely  that  which 
is  not  individual,  but  common  to  all  without  distinction. 
It  does  not  spring  from  the  individuality  but  from  existence 
generally,  is  essential  to  everything  that  exists,  is  indeed 
that  whereby  it  exists,  and  will  accordingly  be  satisfied  by 
existence  in  general  to  which  alone  it  refers,  and  not 
exclusively  by  any  determinate  individual  existence.  For 
it  is  not  at  all  directed  to  the  latter,  although  it  always  has 
the  appearance  of  being  so  because  it  cannot  attain  to  con¬ 
sciousness  otherwise  than  in  an  individual  being,  and  there¬ 
fore  always  seems  to  have  reference  to  such.  But  this  is  a 
mere  illusion,  to  which  indeed  the  crudity  of  the  individual 
cleaves,  but  which  reflection  can  destroy  and  free  us  from. 
That,  namely,  which  so  madly  desires  existence  is  merely 
mediately  the  individual!  Immediately,  and  properly 
speaking,  it  is  the  Will  to  live  in  general,  which  is  one  and 
the  same  in  all.  Now  since  existence  itself  is  its  free 
work,  is  indeed  its  mere  reflection  —  it  follows  that  existence 
cannot  escape  it,  but  it  is  provisionally  satisfied  by  exis¬ 
tence  in  general,  so  far  that  is  to  say,  as  it,  the  eternally 
unsatisfied,  can  be  satisfied.  Individualities  are  the  same 
to  it,  it  does  not  really  concern  itself  with  them,  although 
to  the  individual  who  immediately  only  perceives  it  in  him¬ 
self,  it  seems  to  do  so.  In  this  way  it  is  brought  about 
that  the  individual  watches  over  his  own  existence  with  a 
care  which  would  not  otherwise  be,  and  thereby  secures  the 
maintenance  of  the  species.  Hence  it  follows  that  the 
individuality  is  no  perfection  but  a  limitation,  and  that  to 
be  quit  of  it  is  no  loss  but  rather  a  gain.  Do  not  cherish 
therefore  an  anxiety  which  would  truly  appear  childish  and 
altogether  ridiculous  if  you  knew  your  own  nature  thor¬ 
oughly  and  to  its  foundation,  to  wit,  as  the  universal  Will 
to  live,  which  you  are! 

Thrasymachos  —  You  yourself  and  all  philosophers  are 
childish  and  quite  ridiculous,  and  it  is  only  for  fun  and 
pastime  that  a  staid  man  like  myself  occupies  himself  for 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  with  this  sort  of  fools.  I  have  now 
more  important  things  to  do,  so  good-bye! 


ON  SU  I  CIDE 


As  far  as  I  see  it  is  only  the  monotheistic,  that  is,  the 
Jewish  religions,  whose  votaries  regard  suicide  as  a  crime. 
This  is  the  more  surprising  as  neither  in  the  Old,  nor  in 
the  New  Testament  is  there  to  be  found  any  prohibition, 
or  even  any  decided  disapproval  of  it.  Teachers  of  relig¬ 
ion,  therefore,  have  to  base  their  condemnation  of  suicide 
on  philosophical  grounds  of  their  own,  with  which,  how¬ 
ever,  it  goes  so  badly,  that  they  seek  to  supply  what  in 
their  arguments  lacks  strength,  by  the  vigor  of  their  ex¬ 
pressions  of  disgust,  that  is,  by  abuse.  We  have  to  hear, 
accordingly,  that  suicide  is  the  greatest  cowardice,  that  it 
is  only  possible  in  madness,  and  similar  twaddle,  or  even 
the  entirely  senseless  phrase  that  suicide  is  (<  wrong, )J 
whereas  obviously  no  one  has  a  greater  right  over  any¬ 
thing  in  the  world  than  over  his  own  person  and  life. 
Suicide,  as  already  remarked,  is  even  accounted  a  crime, 
and  with  it  is  allied,  especially  in  brutal,  bigoted  Eng¬ 
land,  a  shameful  burial,  and  the  invalidation  of  the  testa¬ 
ment,  for  which  reason  the  jury  almost  always  brings  in 
a  verdict  of  insanity.  Let  us  before  anything  else  allow 
moral  feeling  to  decide  in  the  matter  and  compare  the 
impression  which  the  report  that  an  acquaintance  had 
committed  a  crime,  such  as  a  murder,  a  cruelty,  a  fraud, 
a  theft,  makes  upon  us,  with  that  of  the  report  of  his 
voluntary  death.  While  the  first  calls  forth  energetic  in¬ 
dignation,  the  greatest  disgust,  a  demand  for  punishment 
or  for  vengeance,  the  latter  will  excite  only  sorrow  and 
sympathy,  mingled  more  often  with  an  admiration  of  his 
courage  than  with  the  moral  disapproval  which  accom¬ 
panies  a  bad  action.  Who  has  not  had  acquaintances, 
friends,  or  relations,  who  have  willingly  departed  from  the 
world  ?  And  are  we  to  think  with  horror  of  each  of  these 
as  of  a  criminal  ?  Nego  ac  pernego.  I  am  rather  of  the 
opinion  that  the  clergy  should,  once  for  all,  be  challenged 
to  give  an  account,  with  what  right  they,  without  being 
(318) 


ON  SUICIDE 


3i9 


able  to  show  any  biblical  authority,  or  any  valid  philo¬ 
sophical  arguments,  stigmatize  in  the  pulpit  and  in  their 
writings  an  action  committed  by  many  men  honored  and 
beloved  by  us,  as  a  crime,  and  refuse  those  who  volun¬ 
tarily  leave  the  world  an  honorable  burial  —  it  should, 
however,  be  clearly  understood  that  reasons  are  required, 
and  that  no  mere  empty  phrases  or  abusive  epithets  will 
be  accepted  in  place  of  them.  The  fact  that  criminal 
jurisprudence  condemns  suicide  is  no  ecclesiastically  valid 
reason,  besides  being  extremely  ridiculous.  For  what  pun¬ 
ishment  can  frighten  him  who  seeks  death  ?  If  we  punish 
the  attempt  at  suicide,  it  is  the  clumsiness  whereby  it 
failed  that  we  punish. 

The  ancients,  moreover,  were  a  long  way  from  regard¬ 
ing  the  matter  in  this  light.  Pliny  ((<  Histor.  Nat.,”  lib. 
28,  c.  1;  vol.  iv.,  p.  351  Ed.  Bip.),  says:  <(  Vitam  quidem 
non  adeo  expetendam  censemus ,  ut  qnoque  modo  trahenda  sit. 
Quisquis  es  talis,  aeqne  morier ,  etiam  cum  obscoenus  vixeris , 
aut  nefandus.  Quapropter  hoc  primum  quisque  in  remediis 
animi  sui  habeat:  ex  omnibus  bonis ,  quae  homini  tribuit 
natura ,  nullum  melius  esse  tempestiva  morte:  idque  in  ea 
optimum ,  quod  illam  sibi  quisque  praestare  poterit .” 
He  also  says  (lib.  2,  c.  7;  vol.  i.,  p.  125):  (<  Ne  Deum 
quidem  posse  omnia.  Namque  nec  sibi  potest  mortem  con- 
sciscere;  si  velit ,  quod  homini  dedit  optimum  in  tantis  vitae 
poenis ,”  etc.  In  Massillia,  and  in  the  island  of  Chios,  in¬ 
deed,  the  hemlock  was  publicly  handed  to  him  who  could 
give  sufficient  reasons  for  leaving  life  ((<Val.  Max.,”  1. 
ii.  c.  6,  §§  7  and  8).*  And  how  many  heroes  and  wise 
men  of  antiquity  have  not  ended  their  lives  by  a  volun¬ 
tary  death!  Aristotle  indeed  says  ( <(  Eth.  Nicom.,”  v. 
15)  that  suicide  is  a  wrong  against  the  state,  although 
not  against  one’s  own  person.  Stobaeus,  however,  in  his 
exposition  of  the  Ethics  of  the  Peripatetics,  quotes  the 
proposition  (Eel.  eth.  II.,  c.  7,  p.  286):  suktov  rov  fitov 
yiyveodat  roi<s  fiev  dyaftolg  iv  ralq  dyav  druyiai^'  rot 9  Si  kolkoIs  kolI 
iv  rat?  dyav  euzuyiais.  ( Vitam  autem  relinquendem  esse  bonis 
in  nimiis  quidem  miseriis,  pravis  vero  in  nimium  quoque 
secundis.)  And  in  a  similar  way,  p.  312:  Aid  nai  ya^aecv, 

*  On  the  Island  of  Chios  it  was  also  the  custom  that  the  aged 
should  voluntarily  put  themselves  to  death. 


320 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


tea)  7racdonoi7j<TEffttac,  kcli  TzoXiTeuGEffd-ai,  etc. ,  /cat  KaftoXou  r rjv  apeTTjv 
a<TnouvTa  nal  fiivetv  kv  rw  flew,  /cat  tt aXcv,  et  diot  n tore  3c  avayna^ 
dnaXXayTjtreff^ac ,  r a<p7j<z  7rpovo7j<ravTa}  etc.  ( Ideoque  et  UXOrem 
ducturum ,  et  liberos  procreaturum ,  et  ad  civitatem  acces- 
surum,  etc.  Atque  omnino  virtutem  colendo  turn  vitam 
servaturum,  turn  iterum,  cogente  necessitate ,  relictarum,  etc.) 

We  find  suicide  celebrated  by  the  Stoics  as  a  noble  and 
heroic  deed,  as  might  be  confirmed  by  hundreds  of  ex¬ 
tracts,  the  strongest  being  from  Seneca.  Again,  with  the 
Hindoo,  as  is  well  known,  suicide  often  occurs  as  a  religious 
action,  especially  as  widow  burning,  also  as  immolation 
beneath  the  wheels  of  the  Car  of  Juggernaut,  as  self-sacri¬ 
fice  to  the  crocodiles  of  the  Ganges,  or  of  the  holy  pond 
of  the  temple,  and  otherwise.  In  the  same  way,  at  the 
theatre,  that  mirror  of  life,  where  we  see  for  example  in 
the  celebrated  Chinese  piece  (<  L’Orphelin  de  la  Chine  * 
(trad.  p.  St.  Julien,  1834),  almost  all  the  noble  characters 
end  by  suicide  without  its  being  anywhere  indicated,  or  its 
occurring  to  the  onlooker,  that  they  have  committed  a 
crime.  On  our  own  stage,  indeed,  it  is  not  otherwise,  e.  g. , 
Palmira  in  Mahomet,  Mortimer  in  Maria  Stuart,  Othello, 
the  Countess  Terzky.  Is  Hamlet’s  monologue  the  medita¬ 
tion  of  a  crime?  It  says  certainly  that  if  we  were  sure  to 
be  absolutely  destroyed  by  death  it  would,  considering  the 
structure  of  the  world,  be  unconditionally  to  choose.  <(  But 
there  lies  [ sic  tr.  ]  the  rub. *  The  reasons,  however,  against 
suicide  which  have  been  put  forward  by  the  clergy  of  the 
monotheistic,  that  is,  Jewish  religion,  and  the  philosophers 
who  accommodate  themselves  to  them,  are  feeble  sophisms 
easy  of  refutation.  (See  my  <(  Treatise  on  the  Foundation 
of  Morals,®  §  5.)  Hume  has  furnished  the  most  thorough¬ 
going  refutation  of  them  in  his  t(  Essay  on  Suicide,  *  which 
first  appeared  after  his  death,  and  was  immediately  sup¬ 
pressed  by  the  shameful  bigotry  and  scandalous  priestly 
tyranny  of  England,  for  which  reason  only  a  very  few 
copies  were  sold,  secretly  and  at  a  high  price,  so  that  for 
the  preservation  of  this  and  of  another  treatise  of  the  great 
man,  we  have  to  thank  the  Basel  reprint :  (<  Essays  on 

Suicide  and  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  by  the  late  David 
Hume.  Basel,  1799.  Sold  by  James  Decker,  p.  124,  8vo.® 
But  that  a  purely  philosophical  treatise  coming  from  one 


ON  SUICIDE 


321 


of  the  first  thinkers  and  writers  of  England,  refuting  the 
current  reasons  against  suicide,  had  in  its  native  land  to 
be  smuggled  through  like  a  forbidden  thing,  until  it  found 
refuge  abroad,  redounds  to  the  greatest  shame  of  the 
English  nation.  It  shows  at  the  same  time  the  kind  of 
good  conscience  the  Church  has  on  this  question.  I  have 
pointed  out  the  only  valid  moral  reason  against  suicide  in 
my  chief  work,  vol.  i.,  §  69.  It  lies  in  that  suicide  is  op¬ 
posed  to  the  attainment  of  the  highest  moral  goal,  since  it 
substitutes  for  the  real  emancipation  from  this  world  of 
sorrow,  a  merely  apparent  one.  But  from  this  mistake  to 
a  crime,  such  as  the  Christian  clergy  seek  to  stamp  it,  is 
a  very  long  way. 

Christianity  bears  in  its  innermost  essence  the  truth 
that  suffering  (the  Cross)  is  the  true  purpose  of  life; 
hence  it  rejects,  as  opposed  to  this,  suicide,  which  an¬ 
tiquity,  from  a  lower  standpoint,  approved  and  even  honored. 
The  foregoing  reason  against  suicide  is,  however,  an 
ascetic  one,  and  as  such  applies  only  to  a  much  higher 
ethical  standpoint  than  that  which  European  moral  phi¬ 
losophers  have  ever  occupied.  But  if  we  descend  from 
this  very  high  standpoint  there  is  no  longer  any  valid 
moral  reason  for  condemning  suicide.  The  extraordinarily 
energetic  zeal  of  the  clergy  of  the  monotheistic  religions 
against  it,  which  is  supported  neither  by  the  Bible  nor 
by  valid  reasons,  must  rest,  it  would  seem,  therefore,  on 
a  concealed  basis.  Might  it  not  be  that  the  voluntary 
surrender  of  life  is  a  poor  compliment  for  him  who  said 
7r dvra  na\a  Uav  ?  Once  more,  then,  it  would  be  the  oblig¬ 
atory  optimism  of  these  religions  which  arraigns  suicide 
in  order  not  to  be  arraigned  by  it. 

We  shall  find  on  the  whole  that  as  soon  as  the  terrors 
of  life  counterbalance  the  terrors  of  death,  man  makes  an 
end  of  his  life.  The  resistance  to  these  terrors  is  never¬ 
theless  considerable;  they  stand  as  it  were  as  warders 
before  the  gate  of  exit.  There  is  no  one  living  perhaps 
who  would  not  have  made  an  end  of  his  life  if  this  end 
were  something  piirely  negative,  a  sudden  cessation  of 
existence.  But  there  is  something  positive  in  it  —  the 
21 


322 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


destruction  of  the  body.  This  frightens  men  back  simply 
because  the  body  is  the  phenomenon  of  the  Will-to- 
Live. 

Meanwhile  the  struggle  with  these  warders  is  not  so 
hard  as  a  rule  as  it  may  seem  to  us  from  afar,  and  indeed 
in  consequence  of  the  antagonism  between  intellectual 
and  corporeal  sufferings.  When,  for  instance,  we  suffer 
corporeal  pain  severely  and  continuously,  we  are  indifferent 
to  all  other  trouble ;  our  recovery  alone  seriously  concerns 
us.  Just  in  the  same  way  severe  mental  sorrows  make 
us  unsusceptible  to  corporeal  —  we  despise  them.  Even 
if  they  acquire  the  preponderance,  this  is  a  welcome 
diversion  to  us,  a  pause  in  our  mental  suffering.  It  is 
this  which  makes  suicide  easier,  inasmuch  as  the  corpo¬ 
real  pain  associated  with  it  loses  all  importance  in  the 
eyes  of  one  tortured  by  excessive  mental  suffering.  The 
above  is  especially  noticeable  with  those  who  are  driven 
to  suicide  through  a  purely  morbid  but  none  the  less 
intense  melancholy.  It  does  not  cost  such  persons  any 
self-conquest,  they  do  not  require  to  form  any  resolution, 
but  as  soon  as  the  keepers  provided  for  them  leave  them 
for  two  minutes  they  quickly  make  an  end  of  their  life. 
When  in  disturbed,  horrible  dreams,  anxiety  has  reached 
its  highest  pitch,  it  brings  us  of  itself  to  awakening,  and 
therewith  all  these  horrors  of  a  night  vanish.  The  same 
thing  happens  in  the  dream  of  life,  where  also  the  highest 
degree  of  anxiety  compels  us  to  break  it  off. 

Suicide  may  also  be  regarded  as  an  experiment,  a  ques¬ 
tion  which  we  put  to  nature,  and  to  which  we  wish  to 
compel  the  answer,  to  wit,  what  change  the  existence 
and  the  knowledge  of  man  experiences  through  death. 
But  it  is  a  clumsy  one,  for  it  abolishes  the  identity  of 
the  consciousness  which  should  receive  the  answer. 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE 
AFFIRMATION  AND  NEGATION  OF  THE 

WILL-TO-LIVE. 


It  is  to  a  certain  extent  to  be  understood  a  priori ,  that 
is  to  say,  it  is  obvious  of  itself,  that  that  which  now  pro¬ 
duces  the  phenomenon  of  the  world  must  also  be  capable 
of  not  doing  so,  and  therefore  of  remaining  at  rest  —  or, 
in  other  words,  that  to  the  present  diaazoXrj  there  must  also 
be  a  (nxTToXri .  If  the  first  be  the  phenomenon  of  the  Will- 
to-Live  the  other  will  be  phenomenon  of  the  non-Will-to- 
Live.  This  will  be  moreover,  essentially  the  same  with  the 
magnum  Sakhepat  of  the  Veda  doctrine  (in  the  <(  Oupnekhat,  * 
vol.  i.,  p.  163),  with  the  Nirvana  of  the  Buddhists,  also 
with  the  i-ni/eiva  of  the  Neo-Platonists.  As  against  cer¬ 
tain  silly  objections  I  may  observe  that  the  negation  of 
the  Will-to-Live  in  no  way  involves  the  destruction  of  a 
substance,  but  the  mere  act  of  not-Willing — that  which 
hitherto  has  willed  wills  no  more,  since  we  know  this  Be¬ 
ing,  the  Will,  as  thing-in-itself  merely  in  and  through  the 
act  of  willing,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  say  or  to  com¬ 
prehend  what  it  is  or  does  after  having  given  up  this  act. 
Hence  the  Negation  is  for  us  who  are  the  phenomenon  of 
the  Will  a  passage  into  nothing. 

Between  the  ethics  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Hindoos  there 
is  a  sharp  opposition.  The  former  (with  the  exception  of 
Plato)  has  for  its  object  to  facilitate  the  leading  of  a  happy 
life,  vitam  beatam.  The  latter,  on  the  contrary,  the  libera¬ 
tion  and  emancipation  from  life  altogether  —  as  is  directly 
enunciated  in  the  very  first  proposition  of  the  Sankhya 
Karika. 

A  similar,  and,  owing  to  its  operating  by  means  of  the 
senses,  a  stronger  contrast  will  be  perceived  on  contem¬ 
plating  the  beautiful  antique  sarcophagus  of  the  gallery 
of  Florence,  whose  reliefs  represent  the  whole  series  of 
the  ceremonies  of  a  wedding  from  the  first  offer  until  the 

(323) 


324 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


time  when  Hymen’s  torch  lights  the  way  to  the  Thoms, 
if  one  at  the  same  time  calls  to  mind  the  Christian  coffin 
with  its  black  hangings  in  token  of  grief,  and  with  the 
crucifix  on  the  top.  The  opposition  is  in  the  highest 
degree  significant.  Both  wish  to  console  in  death,  each 
in  an  opposite  way,  and  each  with  justice.  The  one 
signifies  the  affirmation  of  the  Will-to-Live  which  life 
throughout  all  time  undoubtedly  remains,  however  rapidly 
its  forms  may  change.  The  other  indicates  by  the  symbols 
of  sorrow  and  death  the  negation  of  the  Will-to-Live,  and 
the  emancipation  from  the  world  where  sorrow  and  death 
reign.  Between  the  spirit  of  Grseco-Roman  heathenism 
and  that  of  Christianity  is  the  special  opposition  between 
the  affirmation  and  negation  of  the  Will-to-Live  —  as 
regards  which  Christianity  in  the  last  resort  is  right. 

My  philosophy  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  all  the 
ethics  of  European  philosophy  as  that  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  to  the  Old,  according  to  the  ecclesiastical  conception 
of  this  relation.  The  Old  Testament,  namely,  places  man 
under  the  domination  of  the  Law  which  nevertheless  does 
not  lead  to  emancipation.  The  New  Testament,  on  the 
other  hand,  declares  the  law  insufficient,  indeed  breaks 
away  from  it  —  Romans  vii. ,  Galatians,  ii.  3.  It  preaches, 
on  the  contrary,  the  dominion  of  Grace  which  is  to  be 
attained  through  faith,  love  of  one’s  neighbor,  and  com¬ 
plete  denial  of  oneself.  This  is  the  way  to  emancipation 
from  evil  and  from  the  world,  for  assuredly,  in  spite  of 
all  rationalistic-protestant  misrepresentations,  asceticism  is 
peculiarly  the  soul  of  the  New  Testament;  but  this  is 
precisely  the  negation  of  the  Will-to-Live,  and  the  above 
transition  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New,  from  the 
dominion  of  the  law  to  the  dominion  of  faith,  from  justifica¬ 
tion  through  works  to  salvation  through  the  mediator, 
from  the  dominion  of  sin  and  death  to  eternal  life  in 
Christ,  signifies  sensu  proprio,  the  transition  from  the 
merely  moral  virtues  to  the  negation  of  the  Will-to-Live. 
All  the  philosophical  Ethics  which  have  preceded  me  have 
retained  the  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament  with  its  absolute 
(i.  e.,  foundationless  and  goalless)  moral  law,  and  all 
its  moral  commandments  and  prohibitions  to  which  tacitly 
the  ruling  Jehovah  is  added  in  thought,  however  diverse 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL-TO-LIVE 


325 


may  be  the  forms  and  statements  of  the  matter.  My 
ethic,  on  the  other  hand,  has  basis,  purpose,  and  goal. 
It  first  of  all  demonstrates  theoretically  the  metaphysical 
basis  of  Justice  and  human  love,  and  then  points  out  the 
goal  to  which  these,  when  fully  accomplished,  must  finally 
lead.  At  the  same  time  it  admits  straightforwardly  the 
undesirability  of  the  world,  and  indicates  the  negation  of 
the  Will  as  the  way  toward  emancipation  from  the  former. 
It  is  therefore  really  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  the  New 
Testament,  while  the  rest  hold  in  their  entirety  by  that 
of  the  Old,  and  accordingly  issue  theoretically  in  mere 
Judaism  — (<  naked  despotic  theism.®  In  this  sense  my 
doctrines  might  be  called  the  true  Christian  Philosophy, 
however  paradoxical  this  may  seem  to  those  who  do  not 
go  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  but  remain  standing  on  the 
surface. 

He  who  is  capable  of  deeper  thinking  will  soon  see  that 
human  desires  cannot  first  begin  to  be  sinful  at  that  point 
where  they,  fortuitously  crossing  one  another  in  their  in¬ 
dividual  directions,  occasion  evil  from  the  one  and  malice 
from  the  other  side;  but  that,  if  this  be  so,  they  must  be 
originally  and  in  their  very  essence  sinful  and  accursed, 
and  that  consequently  the  entire  Will-to-Live  must  itself 
be  accursed.  The  horrors  and  misery  with  which  the  world 
is  full  are  then  the  necessary  result  of  the  sum  of  the 
characters  in  which  the  Will-to-Live  objectifies  itself,  to 
which  the  circumstances  occurring  in  the  unbroken  chain 
of  necessity  supply  motives  —  in  other  words,  are  the  mere 
commentary  on  the  affirmation  of  the  Will-to-Live  (com¬ 
pare  (<  German  Theology,®*  p.  93).  That  our  existence  itself 
implies  a  fault  is  proved  by  death. 

A  noble  character  will  not  readily  complain  of  his  fate, 
but  rather  what  Hamlet  boasts  of  Horatio  will  be  true  of 
him: 

“  For  thou  hast  been 

As  one,  in  suffering  all,  that  suffers  nothing. ” 

And  this  is  explicable  from  the  fact  that  such  a  one,  recog¬ 
nizing  his  own  being  also  in  others,  and  therefore  as 
sharing  in  their  fate,  beholds  almost  invariably  round 
about  him  harder  fate  than  his  own,  for  which  reason  he 

*  Deutsche  Theologia,  Edited  by  Franz  Pfeiffer,  Stuttgart,  1851. 


326 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


cannot  bring  himself  to  complain  of  the  latter.  An  ignoble 
egoist,  on  the  other  hand,  who  limits  all  reality  to  him¬ 
self,  and  regards  others  as  mere  wraiths  and  phantasms, 
will  take  no  interest  in  their  fate,  but  will  devote  his  whole 
attention  to  his  own,  great  sensitiveness  and  frequent  com¬ 
plaints  being  the  result.  It  is  precisely  this  recognition  of 
oneself  in  an  alien  phenomenon  from  which,  as  I  have  so 
often  proved  justice  and  human  love  directly  proceed, 
which  leads  finally  to  the  surrender  of  the  Will;  for  the 
phenomenon  in  which  this  Will  presents  itself  is  so  dis¬ 
tinctly  in  a  position  of  suffering,  that  he  who  extends  him¬ 
self  to  all  such  can  no  longer  will  its  continuance  —  just 
as  one  who  takes  all  the  tickets  in  a  lottery  must  neces¬ 
sarily  suffer  great  loss.  The  affirmation  of  the  Will  pre¬ 
supposes  the  limitation  of  self-consciousness  to  one’s  own 
person,  and  reckons  on  the  possibility  of  a  favorable  career 
in  life  from  the  hand  of  fortune. 

If  in  our  conception  of  the  world  we  proceed  from  the 
thing-in-itself — from  the  Will-to-Live  —  we  shall  find  as 
its  kernel,  as  its  greatest  concentration,  the  act  of  gener¬ 
ation  which  presents  itself  as  the  first  thing,  the  point  of 
departure;  it  is  the  punctum  salie?is  of  the  world-egg,  its 
mainspring.  What  a  contrast,  on  the  other  hand,  if  one 
proceeds  from  the  empirical  world,  the  world  of  present¬ 
ment,  which  is  given  us  as  phenomenon!  For  here  the 
aforesaid  act  presents  itself  as  an  altogether  individual 
and  special  one  of  subordinate  importance  —  indeed,  as  a 
covert  and  secret  bye-concern  which  only  creeps  in;  a 
paradoxical  anomaly,  affording  frequent  material  for  laugh¬ 
ter.  It  might  even  strike  us  that  the  devil  only  wanted 
to  hide  his  game  thereby,  for  coition  is  his  currency,  and 
the  world  his  kingdom.  For  who  has  not  remarked  how 
illico  post  coitum  cachinnus  auditur  Diaboli?  which,  to 
speak  seriously,  rests  on  the  fact  that  the  sexual  desire, 
especially  when  by  fixation  of  a  particular  woman  it  is 
concentrated  into  the  passion  of  love,  is  the  quintessence 
of  the  whole  rascality  of  this  noble  world,  for  it  promises 
so  unspeakably,  infinitely,  and  extravagantly  much,  and 
performs  so  contemptibly  little. 

The  share  of  the  woman  in  generation  is,  in  a  certain 
sense,  more  innocent  than  that  of  the  man;  in  so  far, 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL-TO-LIVE 


327 


namely,  as  the  latter  gives  the  Will  to  the  being  about  to 
be  procreated,  the  Will  which  is  the  primal  sin,  and  hence 
the  source  of  all  wickedness  and  evil,  while  the  woman 
gives  the  knowing  faculty  which  opens  the  way  to  emanci¬ 
pation.  The  act  of  generation  is  the  World-focus,  inas¬ 
much  as  it  says:  (( The  Will-to-Live  has  affirmed  itself 
anew. M  In  this  sense  a  well-known  Brahmanic  saying 
laments:  (<Woe,  woe!  The  Lingam  is  in  the  Yoni.w 
Conception  and  pregnancy  tell  us,  on  the  other  hand, 
<(  To  the  Will  is  given  once  more  the  light  of  the  Intel¬ 
lect,  ®  by  means  of  which,  it  can  again  find  its  way  out, 
and  thus  the  possibility  of  emancipation  appears  once 
more. 

From  this  is  to  be  explained  the  significant  phenomenon, 
that  while  any  woman  surprised  in  the  act  of  generation 
would  like  to  sink  into  the  ground  for  shame,  yet  notwith¬ 
standing  she  will  wear  her  pregnancy  without  a  trace  of 
shame,  and  even  with  a  kind  of  pride.  Since  in  every 
other  case  an  infallibly  certain  sign  is  regarded  as  equiva¬ 
lent  to  the  thing  signified,  so  here  every  other  sign  of  the 
completed  coitus  shames  the  woman  in  the  highest  degree; 
pregnancy  alone  does  not  do  so.  This  is  to  be  explained 
in  that,  as  above  said,  pregnancy  in  a  certain  sense  brings 
with  it,  or  at  least  affords  the  prospect  of,  a  purgation 
from  the  guilt  which  has  been  contracted  in  the  coitus. 
Hence  the  coitus  bears  all  the  shame  and  disgrace  in  the 
matter,  while  the  pregnancy  which  is  so  nearly  related  to 
it,  remains  pure  and  innocent,  and  indeed  to  a  certain 
extent  honorable. 

The  coitus  is  chiefly  the  affair  of  the  man,  pregnancy 
wholly  that  of  the  woman.  From  the  father  the  child  re¬ 
ceives  its  Will,  its  character;  from  the  mother  its  Intellect. 
The  latter  is  the  emancipating  principle,  the  former  is  the 
binding  principle.  The  symbol  of  the  continuous  existence 
of  the  Will-to-Live,  in  time,  in  spite  of  all  increase  of  light 
through  the  Intellect,  is  the  coitus;  the  symbol  of  the 
light  of  the  understanding,  and  indeed  in  the  highest  de¬ 
gree  of  its  clearness,  which  is  ever  anew  allied  to  this  Will, 
keeping  up  the  possibility  of  emancipation,  is  the  renewed 
birth  of  the  Will-to-Live  as  Man.  The  sign  of  this  is  preg¬ 
nancy,  which  goes  about  therefore  in  frankness  and  free- 


328 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


dom,  and  indeed  in  pride,  while  the  coitus  slinks  away  like 
a  criminal. 

Some  of  the  church  fathers  have  taught  that  even 
marital  cohabitation  should  only  be  allowed  when  it  occurs 
merely  for  the  sake  of  the  procreation  of  children,  M  pour] 
naidoTtita  as  Clemens  Alex.  (Strom.  1,  iii.  c.  u.)  says. 
(The  passages  referring  to  the  subject  will  be  found 
collected  in  P.  E.  Lind,  de  coelibatu  Christianorum  c.  i). 
Clemens  (Strom,  iii.  c.  3)  attributes  this  view  to  the 
Pythagoreans.  This  is,  however,  strictly  speaking,  incor¬ 
rect.  For  if  the  coitus  be  no  longer  desired  for  its  own 
sake,  the  negation  of  the  Will-to-Live  has  already  appeared, 
and  the  propagation  of  the  human  race  is  then  superfluous 
and  senseless,  inasmuch  as  its  purpose  is  already  attained. 
Besides,  without  any  subjective  passion,  without  lust  and 
physical  pressure,  with  sheer  deliberation,  and  the  cold¬ 
blooded  purpose  to  place  a  human  being  in  the  world 
merely  in  order  that  he  should  be  there  —  this  would  be 
such  a  very  questionable  moral  action  that  few  would  take 
it  upon  themselves;  one  might  even  say  of  it  indeed  that 
it  stood  in  the  same  relation  to  generation  from  the  mere 
sexual  impulse  as  a  cold-blooded  deliberate  murder  does 
to  a  death-stroke  given  in  anger. 

The  condemnation  of  all  unnatural  sexual  pleasures  is 
based  on  the  opposite  ground;  since  though  by  these  the 
impulse  is  satisfied,  that  is,  the  Will-to-live  is  affirmed, 
propagation  is  eliminated  through  which  alone  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  the  negation  of  the  Will  is  maintained.  From 
this  is  to  be  explained  that  it  was  not  before  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  Christianity,  whose  tendency  is  asoetic,  that  pede¬ 
rasty  was  recognized  as  a  deadly  sin. 

A  cloister  is  an  assemblage  of  human  beings  who  have 
embraced  poverty,  chastity,  obedience  (z.  e.,  the  surrender 
of  the  individual  Will),  and  who  seek  through  living 
together  to  lighten  partly  the  existence  itself,  but  still 
more  this  state  of  severe  renunciation,  since  the  sight  of 
those  holding  like  views  and  surrendering  themselves  in  a 
similar  manner  strengthens  their  resolution  and  consoles 
them,  inasmuch  as  the  companionship  of  common  living, 
within  certain  limits,  is  suited  to  human  nature  and  affords 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL-TO-LIVE 


329 


innocent  recreation  amid  many  severe  sacrifices.  This  is 
the  normal  conception  of  the  cloister.  And  who  can  call 
such  a  society  a  union  of  fools  and  idiots,  as  one  must  do 
according  to  any  philosophy  but  mine  ? 

The  inner  spirit  and  meaning  of  the  genuine  cloister 
life,  as  of  asceticism  generally,  is  this :  That  one  has  recog¬ 
nized  oneself  as  worthy  and  capable  of  a  better  existence 
than  ours  is,  and  desires  to  maintain  and  strengthen  this 
conviction  by  despising  what  this  world  offers,  by  casting 
away  from  us  all  its  pleasures  as  worthless,  by  awaiting 
the  end  of  this  our  life  deprived  of  its  empty  bait  in 
rest  and  confidence,  in  order  that  when  at  last  the  hour  of 
death  comes  we  may  welcome  it  as  that  of  emancipation. 
Saniassism  has  entirely  the  same  tendency  and  significance, 
as  also  the  monasticism  of  the  Buddhists.  Certainly  in  no 
case  does  practice  so  seldom  conform  to  theory  as  in  that 
of  Monasticism,  simply  because  its  fundamental  conception 
is  so  exalted,  and  abusns  optimi  pessimus.  A  true  monk  is 
a  being  in  the  highest  degree  honorable.  But  in  by  far 
the  majority  of  cases  the  cowl  is  a  mere  mask,  behind 
which  there  is  as  little  of  the  real  monk  as  there  is  in  one 
at  a  masquerade. 

The  notion  of  devoting  and  surrendering  the  individual 
Will  entirely  and  without  reserve  to  that  of  another  is  a 
physical  means  of  facilitating  the  negation  of  one’s  own 
Will,  and  therefore  a  suitable  allegorical  vehicle  of  the 
truth. 

The  number  of  regular  Trappists  is  indeed  small,  yet 
notwithstanding  this  the  half  of  mankind  consists  of 
unwilling  Trappists.  Poverty,  obedience,  lack  of  all  enjoy¬ 
ments,  or  even  of  the  most  necessary  comforts,  often  com¬ 
bined  with  compulsory  chastity,  or  one  brought  about 
through  defect,  is  their  lot.  The  distinction  is  merely  that 
the  Trappists  conduct  the  thing  of  their  own  free  choice, 
methodically  and  without  hope  of  betterment,  while  the 
other  class  are  to  be  reckoned  to  that  which  I  in  my 
aesthetic  chapters  have  designated  by  the  expression 
deurepo?  nAou?;  to  effect  which  nature  has  already  sufficiently 
taken  her  measures  through  the  fundamental  principles 


330 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


of  her  order,  particularly  if  one  reckons  to  the  evils  directly 
springing  from  the  latter  those  others  which  the  dissension 
and  malice  of  man  produce  in  war  and  in  peace.  But  pre¬ 
cisely  this  necessity  of  involuntary  suffering  for  eternal 
salvation  is  expressed  in  that  saying  of  the  Savior 
(Matth.  xix.  24)  :  (<  eUKOTceSrepov  iffrt  KdprjXov  Scot  rpu7Trjp.aro 9 

pad>cSo\ j  SceXOecv,  ^  nXovatov  ttjv  fiaocXecav  too  fteoo  ei<reX- 

■ttsiv.  ”  ( <(  Facilius  est ,  funem  ancorarium  per  foramen  acus 
transire ,  quam  divitem  regnum  divinum  ingrediF )  Those 
there  are  who  have  taken  their  eternal  salvation  with 
great  seriousness,  have  voluntarily  chosen  poverty  when 
fate  had  denied  it  to  them,  and  when  they  had  been  born 
in  wealth.  Thus  Buddha,  Sakya  Muni  who,  born  a  prince, 
willingly  took  to  the  beggar’s  staff ;  and  Francis  of  Assisi, 
the  founder  of  the  mendicant  orders,  who  as  a  young 
gallant  at  the  ball  where  the  daughters  of  the  notables 
were  sitting  together,  when  asked:  <(Now  Mr.  Francis,  will 
you  not  soon  find  a  choice  among  these  beauties?  ”  re¬ 
plied,  (<  I  have  selected  for  myself  one  much  more  beau¬ 
tiful!”  “Who?®  (< La  poverta /  ”  Upon  which  he  soon 
afterward  left  everything,  and  wandered  through  the  land 
begging. 

He  who  through  such  considerations  has  realized  how 
necessary  to  our  salvation,  sorrow  and  suffering  mostly 
are;  he  will  recognize  that  we  should  envy  others  not  so 
much  on  account  of  their  happiness  as  of  their  unhappi¬ 
ness. 

For  the  same  reason  the  stoicism  of  the  view  which 
defies  fate  is  indeed  a  good  armor  against  the  sorrows  of 
life,  and  serviceable  for  making  the  present  better  to  be 
borne;  but  it  stands  opposed  to  the  true  salvation.  For 
it  hardens  the  heart.  How  shall  this  latter  be  bettered 
by  suffering,  if,  covered  by  a  strong  coating,  it  does  not 
feel  it  ?  For  the  rest,  a  certain  degree  of  stoicism  is  not 
very  rare.  It  may  be  affected  and  turn  out  to  be  bonne 
mine  ati  mauvais  jeu.  Where,  however,  it  is  genuine,  it 
arises  mostly  from  mere  feelinglessness,  from  a  lack  of 
energy,  brightness,  sensibility,  and  imagination,  which  are 
requisite  to  a  heartfelt  sorrow.  The  phlegma  and  heavi¬ 
ness  of  the  Germans  are  especially  favorable  to  this  kind 
of  stoicism. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  WILL-TO-LIVE 


33i 


Unjust  or  malicious  acts  are,  in  respect  of  those  who 
perform  them,  signs  of  the  strength  of  the  affirmation  of 
their  Will-to-Live,  and  accordingly  of  the  distance  which 
separates  them  from  the  true  salvation  which  consists  in 
its  negation,  and  therewith  in  emancipation  from  the 
world ;  and  hence  of  the  long  school  of  understanding  and 
of  suffering  which  they  have  to  pass  through  before  they 
reach  it.  But  in  respect  of  him  who  has  to  suffer  through 
the  above  actions,  they  are,  although  physically  an  evil, 
metaphysically  a  good,  and  at  bottom  a  benefit,  since  they 
help  to  lead  him  to  his  true  salvation. 

World-Spirit  —  Here  then  is  the  measure  of  thy  labor 
and  thy  suffering;  for  this  must  thou  exist  as  all  other 
things  exist. 

Man  —  But  what  have  I  from  existence  ?  If  I  am  occu¬ 
pied  I  have  trouble;  if  I  am  unoccupied  tedium;  How 
canst  thou  offer  me  for  so  much  labor  and  so  much 
suffering  such  a  miserable  reward  ? 

World-Spirit  —  And  yet  it  is  an  equivalent  for  all  thy 
troubles  and  all  thy  sorrows;  and  it  is  this  precisely  by 
reason  of  its  emptiness. 

Man — Indeed?  That  really  exceeds  my  powers  of  com¬ 
prehension. 

World-Spirit — I  know  it.  (Aside.)  Ought  I  to  tell  him 
that  the  value  of  life  consists  exactly  in  that  it  teaches 
him  not  to  wish  for  it?  For  this  highest  dedication  life  itself 
must  prepare  him. 

If  now,  we  can,  through  considerations  such  as  the  above, 
that  is  to  say,  from  a  very  high  standpoint,  see  a  justifi¬ 
cation  for  the  sorrows  of  mankind,  this  does  not  extend  to 
the  animals,  whose  sorrows,  caused  indeed  in  great  measure 
by  human  beings,  but  also  without  their  co-operation,  are 
considerable.  (Compare  <( World  as  Will  and  Present¬ 
ment,®  3rd  ed.,  vol.  ii. ,  p.  404,  seq.)  The  question  there¬ 
fore  arises:  wherefore  this  tormented  anxious  Will  in 
such  thousandfold  shapes  without  the  freedom  of  emanci¬ 
pation  which  is  conditioned  by  reflection?  The  suffering 
of  the  animal  world  is  to  be  justified  merely  from  the  fact 
that  the  Will-to-live,  because  out  of  itself  in  the  phe¬ 
nomenal  world,  finds  nothing  to  hand,  and  since  it  is  a 


332 


SCHOPENHAUER’S  ESSAYS 


hungry  Will  must  devour  its  own  flesh.  Hence  the  scale 
of  its  phenomena,  each  step  of  which  lives  at  the  cost  of 
another.  For  the  rest  I  refer  the  reader  to  my  (<  Contribu¬ 
tions  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Suffering  of  the  World,”  in 
which  will  be  found  demonstrated  that  the  capacity  for 
suffering  in  the  animal  is  much  less  than  in  the  man. 
What  might  be  added  further  than  this  might  appear  hypo¬ 
thetical  or  even  mythical,  and  may  thus  be  left  to  the 
private  speculation  of  the  reader  himself. 


j 


i 3 6500 


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